


A Sage of the Endless Sky

by Star_Sage



Category: Endless Sky
Genre: Free Game, Multi, Science Fiction, steam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-08-27 04:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 36,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8387173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Sage/pseuds/Star_Sage
Summary: A journey begun in defiance, that will take a man from the world he was born on, and catapult him into the heavens. He will learn of himself, of the galaxy, and of those peoples who inhabit this place, the Endless Sky.





	1. The Start of a Journey

I walk onto the bridge of my new ship, a Shuttle really, but still, it's mine, and I sniff the air to find it smells brand new, like it had just rolled off the shipyards at Betelgeuse. I know that's not the case, this ship had probably been sitting on the lot outside for more than a decade before I'd finally bought it, but no one anywhere could have convinced me that this ship wasn't as spotless as a newborn, and waiting for me to take it wailing into the skies overhead, which, in opposition to all my hopes, was overcast and gray.

"Hello, Captain, welcome to your new ship. All systems conforming to your biometrics now, please hold," said a pleasant sounding, male voice, and I smiled at it as I settled into the seat, feeling the motors beneath move, adjusting everything from the cushiness of the padding, to just how high the gravity was, as the engines test fired, the sound vibrating, and the computer logging how my ears sounded against them, buffering the space between till the roar was a pleasant sound, rather than a harsh rumble.

"Biometric adjustments complete. This vessel welcomes you aboard, Captain. I am the Strategic Tactical Analysis Recorder, you may call me, STAR, if you wish," said the voice, and I nodded, running my hand over the controls in front of me, letting them fill my head with thoughts of freedom, as I looked out at the shipyard, or rather, junkyard, before me, where the man who had sold me this vessel was already working on the next sucker, trying to get them to buy a huge Star Barge with no engines, weapons, or anything else one would need to explore, while I had selected the slightly cheaper shuttle.

"Would you like me to alter my voice, Captain? I have many accents and tones you might enjoy. My previous captain said she most prefered an assistant AI like myself to be the opposite of their own gender, for instance?" as the computer spoke, the voice changed, from a rather refined sounding male to a woman who herself might have been a woman of class, in business or the like. I chuckled to myself.

"STAR, you can keep the old voice, if you prefer. I know AIs grow to enjoy their own voices, and I bet you've had that one for a while," I told him, as I began to run through the settings on my controls, including beginning my preflight checks for the journey that would take this ship out of the yard, and to the starport a few miles away.

"Very good sir. I must admit, I was beginning to wonder if anyone would buy my old hulk. So many these days tend to purchase more...shall we say, copious or combative chassis. They all seem to want to haul freight or fight pirates, no one wants a personnel transport anymore," he complained, and I nodded, looking towards a Sparrow light interceptor out the window. The thing gleamed far more brightly than almost anything in the yard, probably spit polished twice a day every day, hoping someone would purchase the glorified turret.

"I don't mind myself. You've got more tanks than the Sparrow, even if you're a bit slower, and you're no clunker like a Star Barge. No, when I go up, I want a hull like this," I told STAR, as we began to ascend, taking off into the wild gray yonder, and then being auto assisted towards a bay that was already prepped and ready for us.

"Ah, so sir wishes to go far? Any particular destination in mind, if I might be so bold to ask?" said STAR in that proper way I was beginning to enjoy myself. Something about his accent really made him sound nice.

"Well, how's about, while we get down, you tell me your story, and I'll tell you mine?" I offered, and the AI seemed to take a moment to consider this, before the screen in front of me changed, showing me logs.

"I find that an interesting proposition, but sadly, my own tale is not one that's long. I was built on some backwater planet Rust, out in the fringe of space in a tiny system called Kraz. My owner's mother had recently died, some accident that she blamed on her brother, and she had me made before taking off. Sadly, her own tale was not long either, as she was visiting the planet Hope when the supervolcano there erupted," as he spoke, images began to play out, mostly showing the images of the ship's cameras shaking, as everything around it became chaos.

"She was caught in it?" I asked, and got a red blinking light I assumed was the AI shaking his head.

"No, my owner then wanted to save people. This shuttle, she loaded it with as many as she could, and brought them here, to New Boston, but sadly, she caught something in the several day journey. One of the Hope refugees had been infected by some virus the eruption had released, and my owner ended up succumbing. I have sat on that lot for fourteen years now, because the government claimed me when no one could find her brother," he told me, and it was my turn to nod.

"A tragedy, a hero that was lost in the shuffle of those days," I told him, remembering the reports. Not that many from Hope had come to New Boston, as most had been taken to nearby Navy bases, as those had been the majority of the evacuating ships.

"Indeed, still, one soldiers on, and I'm happy to finally have a new master. What of yourself, sir? What tale do you have to tell?" he asked, and I chuckled again, as we slowly descended towards the port, mostly just a collection of concrete pads that were slowly being consumed by the surrounding swamp.

"Heh, my tale isn't much longer, at least not my personal one, but I have a family story I could give you. First, what do you know of the Sages?" I asked, and I could hear the chirp as the computer searched his database, and probably those of the planet, for information.

"Sage, a knowledgeable person, often male, who tends to dispense wisdom, but not always in the ways one would expect. Hmm, an odd term to use for oneself," he said, and I actually burst out laughing, slapping my knee as I sat there.

"Hmm, the response indicates that the information is correct, but incomplete," he ascertained, and I nodded, pulling a tear from my eye, before recounting my tale.

"Indeed, I didn't mean sage as a person, I meant as the name of a family," I told him, and this time the chirping only took a moment. After all, you only had to do a cursory search of New Boston's records to find my family.

"Very interesting," as he spoke, a list of accomplishments flashed on the screen in front of me. My ancestor, the first of my line, that we knew of, Elizabeth Sage, who set out from Earth in a long range vessel, like so many others of her era. About twenty years later, she reappeared, unlike most of those, having scouted several new routes, including being the first human to enter the Deep, before it had become one of the most powerful single areas in humans space with technology there being almost a decade ahead of the rest of the galaxy.

It then went farther, my ancestors, always exploring, always pushing at the edges. From scouting for fleets during the Alpha Wars, to simply going away into the dark places, my family was always going where others feared to tread. Then my Great-Grandfather happened. The man, reaching his middle years, had decided to settle on a world only just starting to build itself up as a trade stop, New Boston. Investing his not inconsiderable fortune as arrived, he carved out a nice niche for himself and his family.

He'd figured the world would grow, after all, it was near enough to Earth to be considered near the core of humanity, but also far enough away to be right there when one wanted to escape the humdrum of the crowded cities. Then his ship had been claimed by some bit of the planetary government on some trumped up charge, and all the funds he'd had coming from the family's various ventures dried up, as a stipulation of the family was that a Sage always must own a ship. While they held his, the planetary government itself claimed the incoming funds, as per the will of old Elizabeth.

That had trapped my family here for almost a century now, my great-grandfather dying of a broken heart when the corrupt officials had destroyed his Lady Anne, the ship of his youth, melting it down for scrap, and fragmenting the onboard AI. His daughter, my Grandmother, had fought all her life, trying to earn the money to gain a ship, and they'd blocked her at every turn, before she'd passed the duty onto my mother, and then, finally to me. I was now twenty five years old, by old Earth standards, and the old men who had blocked my family for three generations had found themselves stymied by my tactic.

I'd gone to the galactic bank, a common sight on any world, and gotten a loan, putting everything my family had up as collateral, the banker looking like he was going to be sick as he signed the forms, knowing this was the end of his job here on New Boston, as the old men would surely drive him off. Still, I had the money, and before they could buy up every ship in my price range, I'd bought my shuttle, and now it stood on the pad of the space port.

"So, once we take off, we'll get not only a million and a half credits a diem, but I'll get you a bigger hull. How'd you like to be in a speedy ship. Say, we seek out a Flivver hull for you? They're the fastest ships in the galaxy, even more than the aliens can build. Then we'll get you some escort ships to command," I offered, and the AI's screen actually went through a kaleidoscope of colors, before settling down.

"Hmm, something with a real display would be nice. A good enough processor, and I could even make myself a face. Heck, if you could splurge on a holodisplay, I could have a body," he said, his voice actually getting misty on me.

"For the one who got me off this mud ball, anything. Just let me confirm our course at the port authority, and we'll be flying away into the heavens," I told him, rising from my seat, and then walking out into the port. This was going to be the start of a beautiful friendship, I knew it. Star and Sage, sailing the cosmos together.


	2. Taking Flight

Walking out the airlock, which took a few seconds to cycle out the cool refreshing air of the ship, and cycle in the hot, muggy air outside, I stepped back into New Boston, possibly for the final time. Around me was the port, a few ships docked here and there, but most empty space. Smiling, I made my way along a rickety wooden bridge over swamp water that connected my pad to the central tower, the only permanent structure built at the port, and even then, it seemed to be sinking on one side, with the tower slightly tilted.

Once there, I spent a good ten minutes arguing with the port authority, with the man at the desk trying to convince me I had to stay for some trumped up check on my ship, for my own safety of course, and I told him I was only going one system over, I would get it done there. It took me invoking my right as a Republic citizen, and threatening to contact a Navy outpost to finally force him to give me clearance to leave as well as my pilot's license, and I was in a far less happy mood as I made my way back to the shuttle, Star's Shuttle, and spotted a man loitering nearby.

"Nothing quite like buying your first starship," he comments, and I nod in an offhand way, offering me a bit of steel wool, and pointing to a rust spot on the side. It was obvious that was how he knew the ship was new to me, as any ship in space wouldn't develop such splotches. Taking the offered tool, I quickly rubbed the stuff out, my mood much better now, as I could see my reflection in the hull.

"Well, I don't plan on becoming too attached to this one. I'll be flying something much better before long," I tell him, imagining those credits that will be lining my accounts once I leave for orbit. Either not knowing who I am, a possibility given his stain covered coveralls had an offworld style, or just being nice, he chuckled and laughed at me.

"I'm sure you will, but there's something nice about having a ship you can pilot all by yourself. Believe me, once you have to start managing crew and paying salaries, or keeping track of a whole fleet, you'll miss these days when everything was simple," the old man, with a noticeable accent that definitely pegged him as an offworld, sighed wistfully, and gently put his hand on the hull, rubbing his bare palm over the warm metal, as I realized what he was saying implied.

"You're a captain?" I ask, looking at the ships all around, trying to peg which one was his by sight, but seeing not obvious connections between him, and the few single man ships in my view, all being overshadowed by the Navy vessel that towered over even the control tower itself.

"Was. Sold off my fleet a few days ago, and I already miss it. But it was time. Time to retire…" he lets the last word trail off, his gaze going towards the stars, and I begin to understand. He must have sold his ships and one of the nearby larger systems, possibly Sol's Luna yards themselves, and he'd been dropped off here, another victim of the old men on New Boston who restricted travel off world.

"Say, any chance I could hitch a ride with you? Maybe show you the ropes, give you some pointers? I could pay you, of course," he says, and I nod. This was a man who needed help, who had probably tried booking passage on a dozen or more freighters, only to have them refuse passage for some arbitrary reason. I had no such qualms, however.

"Sure, where are you trying to get to?" I ask him, smiling, as I lead him into the airlock, pushing a button to start the cycle of air movement, giving us a moment away from the port.

"Well, I've got a spot reserved in a retirement home, but I don't mind taking a roundabout way to get there. For starters, how about you give me a lift to New Greenland? It's just one jump away from here; I can mark it on your map," as he speaks the last word, the light turns green, and we enter the Shuttle proper with a hiss, the air becoming pleasant again, as I lead him to the cockpit, past the sparse bunk rooms.

"Sounds good," I told him, and he smiles at me, as he pushed a few buttons, and a service cart comes towards my ship, loaded with his luggage.

"Great, my names James, by the way," he says, offering me his hand. I take it, shaking it, and finding that despite his age, the old man had a heck of a grip.

"I'm Sage, a family name. The AI of this ship is STAR," I tell him, pointing a thumb towards the AI's display.

"A pleasure, Mr. James," said that proper voice of his.

"And you. I'm looking forward to traveling with the two of you, Captain Sage. Do you want to go to the trade center to pick up any goods for sale? Or maybe visit the outfitter before we leave?" he asks, a question that would normally have been an easy yes, but I looked out the port to find a bureaucrat I recognized coming towards our ship, a whole pallet's worth of forms in his hands.

"I think I'm ready to hit the space ways myself," I tell James, motioning for him to strap in, and even as the man in the suit comes towards us, I'm taking off, flaring my engines and scattering his papers, before shooting into the overcast skies, and finally into the space beyond.


	3. Amusing Asides

"Captain Sage, I have installed the holologs, if you'd like to make an entry," said Star's voice, sounding far more human than before, lacking the proper accent he'd had. Around me was his new hull, the Flivver I'd promised him back on New Boston. It had been a few days only, but the instant I'd left the mudball behind, I'd started collecting on my family's money. Not that I'd completely escaped New Boston's grip, as they sent me regular messages now about returning for reasons that had started out as just missed paperwork, but had now grown into actual attempts at intimidation, as they sorely missed the influx of over a million credits a day that was now going to me instead of them.

"Hmm, not a bad idea. Okay let's get the first entry out of the way. My adventures with James," I began, and Star looked at me, his holographic body being an almost duplicate of my own, save instead of the captain's uniform I wore, he wore a business suit.

"Adventures, sir? They were mildly amusing asides, at best," he countered, and I chuckled, as we slowly began to rise off the landing pad, making our way into space.

"True, but he was a nice old man, and he gave us some pretty good advice. Plus, I don't think we would have gotten any of those jobs without him," I commented, and Star, after a few moments, nodded his head.

"Alright, so, James first took us to New Greenland, where I learned to check the local weather report, and make sure I have an appropriate bit of attire for the planet I'm heading to. While there, he introduced me to the idea of taking missions, for a Shuttle, that means playing bus driver of the cosmos," I began, and watched as STAR's form blinked out, to be replaced by images of our passenger, and the people he'd introduced us to along the way, including that first family.

"Turns out the old man was as loaded as I was, though I kept my own family fortunes a secret, first visiting the bank on New Greenland to clear my debt to them, an action that almost got me arrested as the clerk apparently thought I was running some kind of scam, taking out a huge loan and paying it off only two days later. Still, with that out of the way, I went to the port to depart, and ran into James again, this time hauling a family, the Hendersons, around. Three generations of people, all begging me to take them off world," as I spoke, the image of the family grew larger in the holodisplay, focusing on the old lady.

"Anyway, I would have waved off the money, but didn't want to seem ungrateful for the job, so I decided to take them. It was a tight fit, considering there's only five bunks on a shuttle, and we had five adults, and four kids, but we were able to make it work, and I took the family to New China, where the father hoped to find work, and I wished them all a good and happy life," finishing that, a map of the stars between New Greenland and New China popped up, with a graphic of a Shuttle moving between them.

"Landing there, I dropped off my passengers, making sure they were getting everything, and even took the father aside. Apparently James, despite what he'd claimed, was footing the bill for these people, who didn't have a credit to their name. Feeling pity myself, I slipped the man a hundred thousand credit chit, and then wished him and his family good luck in their new life, before James went off on his own again, and I decided to explore New China a little," an image popped up of the Terra Tower, the massive air terraformer that gave New China a human optimal atmosphere, standing almost a mile tall.

"When I made my way back to port after my sight seeing, James found me again. This time, it was a vacationing family, rather than a moving one, and I would have said no, if the destination they wanted to visit hadn't been Earth itself. Old Home Terra. Sol III," and as I spoke, another image of the trip popped up, but this time Earth itself came to dominate the view.

"The tourists, Chuck, Sarah, and their son Carl, were given a few last bits of parting advice from James, who looked at me with eyes that said it was as much for me as them, and then we parted ways again. This time, I took a day off, observing the Earth and all her glory. If you could call it that. Oh, it looks fine, the most populated, and supposedly prosperous world in human space. This world is, by all accounts, what would generally be described as a hell hole though, with some nice tourist destinations, and little else beyond government buildings that are safe to visit," as I spoke, a few buildings swept past, my favorite being the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, as that was a monument to what my line stood for, always going forward into the great unknown.

"I found James a few hours later in the hanger, staring wistfully out at the ships, and trying to be philosophical about the state of humanity on Earth and beyond. Not that the image worked much, he still had those grease covered overalls on, but still, I let him have his moment, as he asked me to take him on one final trip, the last trip of his life, as we were destined for his retirement home, a planet named Hestia, that my AI companion quickly identified as a 'Paradise' world, fit only for the elite," as I spoke, said AI flashed our route again, including that time I got turned around because I refused to buy star charts, before finally showing an image of the world itself.

"James revealed his fortune to me as we landed, his coveralls being replaced with a real wool suit, a luxury not many a man can afford in this day and age. He tried to pass it off, tried to say he wasn't that wealthy, but I knew that he was on par with my family line, even if his was liquid assets rather than invested ones. Still, I wished the man all the best as he left me, going towards the richly appointed house he'd had me land at, with a butler coming out to greet him and everything," this last was displayed as a recording from the Shuttle's external cameras, and I watched again, as the old man slipped out of my life, a nice old guy, all things considered.

"After that, I took off, going along an unidentified starlane to the galactic west of Hestia, and finding the world of world of Follower, where we're at right now. I spent the night here, buying this Flivver hull for STAR and all the upgrades to go with it. Now we're going to be exploring the galaxy together. Let's see what the future has in store," as I spoke, I dropped into the Captain's seat.

"Log for Monday, December 13, 3013 filed. Do you have a course to set, Captain Sage?" asked the AI, and I grinned as the atmosphere above us began to give way to the inviting void of space.

"Second star to the right, and straight on til morning," I told him, smiling as the stars began to fade into a single point of light in front of me, hyperspace welcoming us with open arms.


	4. History Lesson

"Log begin, Remembrance Day, Tuesday, February 22, 3014. Today, almost five hundred years to the day really, the Alpha Wars began. A conflict that embroiled all of humanity against our progeny, the Alphas. Those beings created from our minds, but made to be better than us. How were they made, and by who? No one knows, not really anyway. Some believe them to be a government experiment gone far awry, others that they were cooked up by some human supremacist group in anticipation of a first contact that hadn't happened yet," as I spoke, the timeline of events played in front of STAR's holographic form, showing the first days of the war.

"Whatever their origin, well, they were monsters. They used people, as human shields, as guinea pigs in their sick tests, or just as toys to be played with until they broke, and then discarded as trash. These were the boogiemen made manifest, born of the worst parts of humanity, and lacking all of our best traits, no matter what they said. Worse, for years into the war, they were winning, as their ships always seemed to be faster, better armed and armored. Always popping up in the worst places, at the worst possible times," and with those statements, the pictures of the defeats at the Line and the Gate were shown.

These were the worst battles of the war. The Battle of the Line was the battle to hold the Earth's hyperspace routes from the Alphas' fleets, stopping them at the Vega system. It hadn't worked, as the Alpha forces had literally rammed into the line of Navy ships, slamming into them, one after another, at near sublight speeds. The defeat was almost total, and the rout back towards Earth nearly finished the human race. The Tannhauser Gate, now the Zosma system, was the last guardians before the Deep, and many lives were lost trying to hold it against the seemingly endless numbers of the Alphas.

"Then it ended. In a fell swoop, the people of the Deep came together, and with ships and weapons far more advanced, produced by the 'Deep Thinkers' according to the people of Valhalla, the human race beat them back. The Alphas, despite their victories, had spent far more than it had first seemed breaking those final lines of defense, and when the counterstroke came on so hard and fast, they were broken, the world of Womb, in the Gamma Cassiopeiae system, was literally smashed to rubble, and the largest chunks of it hurled into the sun, to destroy whatever backups the Alpha's might have," this was accompanied by the images of the final great battle, the last stand of the Alphas literally breaking on the shields of the Deep designed ships.

"After that, they were reduced, but not defeated, and to date, no official victory day exists for the Alpha Wars, as too many remember the horrors of those days, and some still think they could return, with weapons far worse than those they had before. Vigilance is the price that we pay now, and for five hundred years every explore dreads coming into a new system and finding a stronghold of them, waiting there to pounce on the unsuspecting," and with that, the images of the war were replaced with the emblem of the Alphas, the A with the infinity symbol behind it, showing their belief in their infinite power.

"Still, that fear will not stop me. I will not cower before the stories of five centuries past. It's why we're in a Flivver after all. This ship, with these engines, can outrun anything, and we already have, as a dozen or more pirates have tried to take us on, and found us slipping through their fingers. Its close a time or two, but I'm confident we can keep going, and discover brand new worlds out there somewhere," I said, and STAR shrugged, as he logged everything in the computer, getting me to raise an eyebrow at him.

"You disagree?" I asked, and the AI seemed to mull over his own thoughts for a moment, before facing me directly.

"I have to agree, we're the fastest thing in space as of this moment, but I feel that firepower would not go amiss. Perhaps a few large warships for escorts. You do have the funds to afford it after all," he said, and flashed my current balance, well over a hundred million credits, beside him, and I stopped to consider his words. It was true, with no weapons, and not much in the way of shields, we were stuck with running whenever we encountered enemies. I had wanted to adventure alone for a while, but perhaps a fleet of ships wouldn't be a bad idea.

"File that thought away for later. For now, there's a route out of this system I think sounds promising. If we run into a big pirate ship, we'll hightail it to the nearest Navy shipyard and rustle up a hull and the men to man it," I offered and STAR seemed to accept this as he began to plot a course away into the heavens, and I watched the stars' glow turn from many dots of light, to a single glowing sphere in front as the hyperdrive activated.


	5. Overwhelming Odds

"Sir, they are achieving a firing solution," said STAR's voice, sounding the most distressed I had heard him. Around me, sirens were blaring, loud, annoying, distracting sirens, but it would have taken too much away from my concentration to tell STAR to quiet them down as my hands flew over the controls. Behind me, I could hear the engines and cooling systems strain against the load I was putting on them, as STAR distributed power between everything, allowing me to flare our forward mounted engines, stopping us just so that pair of missiles flew past our bow.

One of the reasons AIs didn't pilot ships themselves is they don't react fast enough to real world stimuli. Oh, they can process it quickly, but their minds are always going over every solution, never picking one because it never brings the risk down low enough. Normally, outside of combat, this isn't an issue, and AIs tend to the route planning, and day to day functions of a ship, but as the Falcon behind us came closer, I knew this was not one of those times STAR could help, and instead focused on getting us out of this.

"Do you have a route out of this system yet!?" I demanded, fingers screaming at me, as sweat trickled down my brow. Still, I never let go of the stick, adjusting our pitch and yaw so we were suddenly shooting in an entirely different direction, just as the pirate ship's big guns tore through the space we'd have been in had we kept course.

"I will have it momentarily," he responded, trying to sound calm, and I spared a glance at his display, seeing the route really was nearly done, but also that it wasn't going to be the one we'd come in on. No, that one had three more Falcons and a dozen or more smaller ships coming out of it now. Swearing, I jammed everything we had into the port thruster, spinning us around, and then gunning us straight towards the new route, which lay past the Falcon that had been on our tail.

"Sir, might I suggest-," began STAR.

"No!" I cried, grunting as I pulled us back, our hull clearing theirs by inches, even as I wished not for the first time that I had a shield generator on board to provide some additional protection.

"Route checked and cleared, engaging hyperdrive," said my AI, and I got another blare of alarms as more missiles were incoming, from a pair of missile boats that I didn't have the time to ID. Still, we were already stopped, and by the time they got in range, we had shot away into the distance, vanishing towards a distant star.

"Well, that was exciting," I commented, as we came out of hyperspace, the clock showing a day had passed in seconds due to FTL physics I honestly didn't understand. Still, those pirates were way behind us, and while I could see we didn't have enough fuel in the tank for even a single jump, our ramscoop was already collecting more from the surrounding system. A few hours, and we could perform a few jumps in rapid succession, should the pirates prove to be spawn campers.

"Sir, that was not what I would call an enjoyable experience. Perhaps when we return to port, you'll think of buying a warship for our escort?" said STAR, and I sighed, realizing he was right. I had so wanted to be as Elizabeth had back in the day, a single person, a single ship, plying the starlanes, and making my way to the farthest edge of the galaxy, but this had been too close, as if the pirates had known I'd be there, and were waiting to pounce. Still pondering this, I rose from my seat, gazing towards a screen at the damage report, which included many scores on the hull that couldn't be fixed yet, and a few power systems I could reach from inside.

Then the sirens sounded, loud blaring alarms going off again, and exhausted as I was, I fell back into the familiar seat of my Flivver, looking towards the scanners. Behind us, the Falcon that had been dogging us since we'd entered the uninhabited system before, came screaming into view again. It had a few scorch marks on the hull, possibly from another fight that they'd gotten into in the system we'd been in. Looking towards my fuel gauge, which was only half there, I decided to talk.

"STAR, open a channel. Maybe we can buy these fools off," I ordered, and waited for tense seconds as the AI linked himself to their systems, and then slowly the screen before me resolved into images I knew far, far too well. Five faces I recognized from New Boston, the Old Men, as I called them, though that was a misnomer. Their ranks boasted a woman, after all, and their ages weren't really that advanced. Still, it was the power of their and their forebears politics that had trapped my family on the swampy world for a century.

"Ah, Mr. Sage, so good to see you've finally come to your senses," said the one in the center, and I stared daggers at him, keeping an eye on the fuel gauges, willing the ramscoop to go faster.

"Benard, it's a...I'll cut to the chase, what in all the hells are you doing here?" I demanded. Buying time would only get me so far after all, and right now, I was just plain curious what a group of big wigs from New Boston were don't out this far, and on a ship flying the flag of a pirate.

"Ah, as unpleasant as ever, I see. Well then, I shall be brief. You will be returning to New Boston with us, where you will be tried in a very public, very fair court, for all the crimes you committed in leaving our world behind. Then, you'll be tossed into a prison cell, where you will never see the light of the stars ever again, and we will go back to collecting on our money," he said bluntly, getting a few looks from his colleagues, one of which leaned off screen, whispering something about scrubbing the recording of the conversation from the logs.

"You greedy bastards. You really went to all this trouble, just to drag me back so you could steal more of my money?!" I demanded incredulously.

"Indeed we have. You see, the fortune you were making us has been...invested in various ventures that are only now coming to fruition, and we need to insure that we do not run out of capital before that endpoint is reached. Your departure at this time was most inconvenient, but luckily, we had enough in savings to hire these fine gentlemen to come drag you back home, where you belong," he told me, getting a very politician like grin on his face as he leaned back in his seat and crossed his fingers in front of him. As he spoke, several more Falcons entered the system.

"Now would be the time for you to surrender. You have no weapons, no shields, and even if you can outrun us, there's half a fleet waiting for you back in the system we came from. You're trapped in the Ultima Thule system. The only hyperspace lane out is back the way you came," he told me, and I grunted, looking at the scanners out of the corner of my eye, and finding he was very right. At least, about the lane. There was an anomaly though, a swirling energy vortex that lingered at the edge of the system.

"STAR, prepare to take on boarders," I said, and then cut the comm channel, as that grin on screen grew even more smug. Of course, the minute the image vanished, I began to run numbers in my head.

"Sir, if you surrender now, I don't see myself being left alive, or you for that matter," he said, and I shook my head.

"No, no, old Elizabeth's will is clear, the family fortunes, investments in a thousand big businesses, all pay dividends only while I or another of her descendents is alive. They'll be sure I live to a ripe old age, and probably make sure I have a kid too, even if they have to force the issue," I told him, watching on one of the screens, as the group of ships began to close in, their weapons cold, as they needed me alive. While they grew closer, I started to adjust our angle, as subtly as possible.

"Still, I'm not going to be taken back, and they're certainly not fragmenting the one who got me off that mudball. Perpare to gun the engines, hard. If they think it's this easy to catch a sage, well they have another think bloody well coming," I swore, and STAR, looking where I was aiming, nodded, and I could hear the whine as our engines, still appearing cool, began to build up a charge inside them. The moment the Falcon that Bernard and the others were on got close enough, I redlined our core, burning away at best speed.

"Aim for the vortex. If it's as energetic as it appears, we can probably use it to fill the scoop in record time, then we can do several jumps to get back to that Republic world we passed and report these morons," I told STAR, and then watched as the swirling cloud of blue light grew brighter in my screen. Behind us, the Falcons all fired, but the idiots had failed to keep their targeting locks on us specifically, and with our size compared to the other Falcon that had been trying to dock, I got a nice view as missiles slammed into their shields.

"Sir, they're attempting to reopen communications," said the AI helpfully, and I motioned for him to put them on screen as we dove towards the vortex.

"Mr. Sage, please see reason. If you die here, then all those lovely credits will end up in the hands of the Earth political system. Do you really think they'll do anything worthwhile with such fortune?" said Bernard, the others beside him looking far more like they wanted to say other things, as one of them shouted orders to the pirate crew, and one actually had a fire roaring behind him that was being put out by a crewman.

"You know, that's not really an argument that's going to work on me, considering you're way worse to me right now that some Earth big shot," as I spoke, the ship shuddered suddenly, the screen blurring the image of the faces, which I clicked off with a flick of my wrist anyway.

"What's going on?" I asked, punching a few buttons, adjusting our gravity so I wasn't being drawn out of my seat by the sudden pull towards the front of the ship.

"The vortex, it's generating a much higher gravity field at close range than at far. Scanning the database for matches produces many similar phenomenon, but the most closely related is a wormhole," explained the AI, and I looked forward into the roiling mass of clouds, where lightning played between formations, and I could now see the twisting light behind.

"Is it safe?" I queried, even as I drove the ship forward, the Falcons doing their best to close in, but already too far away to do anything should I make the plunge.

"Data inconclusive," admitted STAR, and I had that sinking feeling one gets before they make a life or death decision. I only had to wait a heartbeat before I chose though, and we dove forward, the feeling of weightlessness coming over me despite the gravity, as everything around me exploded outward.


	6. Roll of the Dice

The feeling of falling into the vortex was odd. Tingly in a way that was similar, and yet fundamentally different from hyperspace. For one thing, I was aware the entire trip. Despite the twenty four hours that passed in the journey, I was still thinking the whole time, just unable to move. My thoughts were not pleasant ones either, as outside, the universe had been replaced by swirling energy and storms, lightning playing along the hull that didn't even seem to feel. Finally, mercifully, the wormhole spit us out on the other side, the sense of gravity collapsing back in on itself as I came to a halt, and then looked around.

"STAR! Where the blazes we?" I demanded as I pulled back on the throttle, slowing us as we nearly were shot out of the system by the force of our expulsion from the vortex.

"Calculating now...we are in the Waypoint system, a star that is, as far as my charts are concerned, completely disconnected from known hyperspace routes," as he spoke, STAR showed off the map of the galaxy, allowing me to see the route we'd taken in relation to known stars, and I whistled in appreciation. We were way, way outside the range of a typical hyperspace jump, and without lanes, we could rest a moment. Sighing, I took stock, seeing my fuel gauge was already at almost enough for a jump thanks to our wormhole, and STAR was already calculating a way out...WHIRWHIRWHIR!

The alarm sounded, and my thoughts scattered. Behind us, the vortex was spinning in an odd way, seemingly twisting on itself, before out of it came shapes. At first they were stretched beyond recognition, like pictures that had been grabbed at both ends, but then they slowly resolved, and before my eyes, all five of the Falcons appeared, their hulls gleaming, and their weapons glowing.

"They followed us?!" I said incredulously. There was no other word for what I was feeling. This was madness. What I'd done should have been suicidal, and yet, they must have followed within hours, if not minutes, even their reserve pursuing me now, and our arrivals at similar times due to the time lapse involved in wormhole travel.

"Affirmative sir, they appear to be charging weapons and closing at speed. I'm afraid I cannot see a path to avoid them," said my AI companion, showing all the scenarios he could come up with, not one of them resulting in our getting away from this.

"We aren't dead yet! Are there any lanes out of here?" I asked, and STAR found one in almost that same instance. I didn't wait for any word on his part, instead just punching in the coordinates, and jumping. I expected this action to buy us a few minutes, at most, but I'd made one miraculous escape, maybe another was in my future. With that feeling of weightlessness that comes from a jump, I went into the stars, the negative of an image in my eyes telling me that we had jumped just as beams of green light swept our position.

When I came back to myself, the world resolved into another new system, a pair of stars at its center, and a name on the map calling it Heia Due. Knowing they would be right behind, I began to plan, trying everything I could to think of a way out of this, only to have my thoughts interrupted when a beacon popped up on my scanners, a landing beacon in a system that should have been uninhabited. That brought me up short just long enough for a signal to come in, that STAR put up on a display in front of me.

"This is Allhome control. Your ID and engine signature are not on file. Please confirm, you are human?" said an oddly accented voice, which chittered a little on the c's as it spoke.

"This is STAR's Flivver, a human ship, yes. We're currently running from a group of pirates that…," as I spoke the five Falcon's entered the system, their weapons heating up the moment they stopped, and I gunned my engine, heading straight to the beacon I'd been talking to. I would choose the unknown devil over the one I knew any day of the week, and I was entering orbit of the planet just as the five Falcons found me.

"Those are the pirates?" asked the weird voice.

"Indeed, they want to capture me, alive," I said, and got a set of chittering noises from the comm, followed by another set, this one deeper, as the two aliens spoke.

"We are launching a Beetle flight, please hold position," said the first, and I complied instantly, hitting the retro boosters to maintain position, even as the Falcons came towards me.

"Mr. Sage, I believe our chase is over now, please sur-," began Bernard's voice again, but before he could say much, a huge ship came towards us from the planet's surface, joined a few seconds later by several dozen smaller ships, each one of an unknown design to my computers, but with engine outputs and shield levels that dwarfed the Falcons by an order of magnitude or more.

"This is Hai Commander Joe to incoming Falcons. STAR's Flivver has claimed you are pirates, and thus are under the protection of the Hai. We do not wish conflict with human vessels, but we will do so if it becomes necessary. If you will land, however, we might come to an arrangement," said a voice I recognized as the deep chittering one from before. It was odd though, this one didn't have the same accent, speaking gal-standard fluently, with a tone that spoke of peace.

"This is none of your concern, Commander. This criminal has escaped justice for many days now, and will be captured. If you interfere in our operation, we will fire upon you," said Bernard over the open comms, and I stayed stock still.

"STAR's Flivver, are you a criminal as well?" asked the Hai, and I considered my answer carefully before I responded.

"I am not, and would happily submit myself to you, Commander Joe, if you wish it," I offered, figuring if they were interested in justice, I would at least have a chance to make my case. Before anything else could happen though, one of the Falcons fired, rays of green light shooting out towards me, and forcing my small vessel to blow open an airlock to avoid. Bernard's voice came over the comms, admonishing the idiot who fired, but it was already too late to do anything about it, and he ordered the other ships to join in.

Almost instantly the battle became a chaotic stream of light and missiles, with my tiny ship tossed around in the maelstrom. The Flivver was known to be fast, but as missile, lasers, and even a few shuttles flew at me, I got to see how fast, flipping, juking, and even spinning in place once, to avoid incoming fire. The other ships proved less agile, but were far more powerful, with the Falcons firing wildly into the alien armada, taking down several of the smaller ships, but their blasts seemingly useless against the largest vessel, its wedged shape moving ominously towards them as it fired strange missiles and other weapons.

The battle took almost an hour, as Falcons were known for being strong, but five command ships against a battle fleet was not an easy battle to win, and by the end, the pirates were defeated, three of them flying off, while two were blown to rubble, with Bernard telling me about how I would not escape him next time. The Hai Commander then offered me a landing on his planet, and asked to enjoy his world, saying that he would like to meet with me at my earliest convenience, as his slightly damaged command ship descended back into the atmosphere, and I followed shortly after, to repair my ship, and to learn of those who'd saved me.


	7. New Arms

"The Hai were...interesting, yes, let's go with that. It's the least insulting way I can put it, and I really don't hold any ill-will towards them. The Hai, in physicality were most analogous to squirrels, giant bipedal squirrels. That...should not have been possible, but I suppose the universe has shown me weirder things in my day," as I say this, I run my hand over the controls in front of me, the floating lights seeming to waver at my touch, but still giving the commands I wanted to the ship around me, which rumbled and whined as it came to life.

"After meeting with a pair of locals, both of the Hai and human variety, I learned a lot. This area of space is controlled by the Hai, but they welcome visitors, including humans. Apparently the Republic has actually known about these people for some time, but has decided in their infinite wisdom to suppress knowledge of them. The Hai seem to think they do this in a peaceful way, but the look that man gave me while talking about it said all that needed to be said. I'm not supposed to tell anyone about this place," I said to the systems around me, hearing the chirp and whistle as systems were checked.

"Upon untangling myself from that, I decided to meet with the one who saved me in space. Turned out to be Commander Monkey Joe, otherwise known as...I can't say it. Her, as it turned out, real name is a series of chitters and squeaks I don't think my throat could reproduce, but she turned out to be a nice lady, with a lot of knowledge about the local stars and stuff. She even suggested, when I commented on her ship, going to Hai Home, their homeworld, and purchasing one for myself," the sounds of startup continued, as a chair seemed to fold out of the floor, and I sat on it.

"This turned into a discussion on what form of payment they wanted. Turns out, Hai like certain goods from Republic space, and so Republic credits are good here. Heck, most of their planets even have GalStandard Banks on them to facilitate money transfers. I quickly found myself adventuring into their space, and after a bribing my way onto Hai Home, I had enough left over to purchase two dozen of their huge ships, trading in my Flivver for the one I'm in right now," as I say the last words, STAR finally pops up, his form still holographic, but looking more...solid than before.

"All preflight checks completed, Commandant. The fleet is ready to move out," he told me, and I nodded, looking over the controls, and then at the views showing the crew. They were a mixture of Hai, Human, and even a few Quarg who happened to be in Hai space. Most had been told I was going to trade out living crew for androids back in Republic space, but that seemed to bother them not at all, so they had signed on with me. Making a pass over of a few ships functions, I pressed a button, and suddenly had holos of all my ship captains hanging in the air before me.

"Alright everyone, this is my first time commanding a fleet, so I want to indulge a bit. Sound off, and get into formation as you launch," I ordered, and got the names of the Captains, stand ins for their ship names as I was uncreative at such things. Monkey Joe herself had taken a position in my command, resigning her commission with the Hai(a process as simple as saying she was leaving), and deciding to adventure with me. Another was a Quarg. He/She/It/I-refuse-to-ask had actually approached me upon hearing I was hiring captains, and despite missing their right arm, they proved to be quite a pilot, easing their ship out of the port in a very graceful turn.

Soon my fleet was in the sky, the blue tint of the air peeling back and diluting until only the black of space remained, a blackness that was at once terrifying, inviting, and beautiful, with a million shimmering diamond stars painted in the softness. Ships, a few of them, moved towards us, making sure we were staying on course, and we did, jumping out of system a few minutes after we had ascended, and making our way out of Hai space. Oddly, I had expected/hoped to run into Bernard's fleet, but those Falcons were long gone as we passed back into human territory.

"Oh well, he'll pop back up, probably at the worst time possible," I told myself, wondering just when that worst time would be.


	8. Fire in the Sky, Fire in the Heart

(A/N: I'm sorry to say, the NDR-114's introduced in this chapter, and used in later ones, we removed in update 0.92 due to issues of balance, as even being as expensive as 2 years of salary they still were a bargain. They're still in the code of the game, of course, and can be added back in by modding easily enough, but officially they've been removed. Still, I'm not going to edit the story to remove them, as they become a major part of it, so I'll be adding them back in via the modding as well. Hope you continue to enjoy the story, and hopefully the game as well)

We landed on Shroud, a planet in the Alheka system I remembered sold the androids, NDR-114s, which could be slaved to a single AI control for a ship. I had already talked with STAR about it, and he believed he could not only control the androids, but by placing iterations of himself in every ship of the fleet, he would be able to coordinate everything together at once. It wouldn't be easy, mind, and he admitted that, but with basic functions taken care of, my score and change of captains would be able focus on flying their ships as if they were just scaled up fighters, rather than the massive capitals they actually were.

Having bought the robots, and getting them delivered to my fleet, I then gathered the crews from Hai space, and paid them for their time, even giving a bonus of almost five times what they were owed for the trip, before waving farewell to them. I then slummed the day with Monkey Joe, learning about the Hai and their ways, mostly ones of peace, save for the ones to the north called the Unfettered. Monkey herself though, who's human name had been given by a human she'd met, had wanted more. Not fighting persay, just something different from the peace the Hai were used to. This was the very reason she'd joined their defense corps in the first place.

It was while she and I were enjoying a nice bit of food(Turns out the Hai don't actually like nuts, and are in fact more fond of dairy), that the panic started. Oh at first it was just a few people with their data assistants out, scrolling through the headlines and such. I noticed, but only vaguely as many of them gasped at something, and I paid it little mind. Considering we were in the upper echelons of Shroud, a deeply divided world of haves and havenots I figured it was some market collapse.

Then the big display at the front of the cafe were were eating at tuned in on a scene of horror. A cloud, a mushroom cloud, with an explosion at its base, was forming on some world. At first, I thought it was some kind of asteroid impact on some unprepared world, but then the text scroll showed otherwise. It was Martini, a planet in the Pollox system. The site of the Galactic Stock Exchange, the center of commerce throughout the Republic. The city had been hit, at first information indicating it was some accident, only to shift to being a terrorist attack in mid scroll, followed by the image of a similar cloud on Geminus in the nearby Castor system.

"Get everyone together," I ordered Joe, and the two of us set out, contacting the captains, and then heading to the port. We were a week away, at best, but I wasn't going to not offer to help. I had ships with more than enough room for supplies, building materials, and everything else, and had my bays loaded with whatever I could. When they was done we set out, taking the fastest routes I knew. We stopped by Geminus first. What had once been the site of the Republic Navy's shipyards, which churned out the carriers and cruisers that defended the innocent amongst the stars, was now a crater.

"Atomics, used on human soil. First time that's happened since the Alpha Wars," commented one of the officials I met, offering the goods I had to her to help with the clean up efforts. The woman, an Admiral in charge of the yards, thanked me, but directed me to take them to Martini instead. The yards had been nearly empty when the attack happened, the night crew only, and what had been damaged wasn't stuff replaceable by the same material as civilian buildings.

That was how we found ourselves on in the Pollux system, my bays spilling food, medicine, and everything else, given freely to those in need. The local disaster relief workers, who were expecting it to be weeks before the Republic was able to send someone almost cried as I told the what I had, and with a few signed papers, we sent it out to those in need. A day after landing, our bays were empty, and I was planning on a trip to Sol for more goods, when a man in a sharp business suit came into the port.

"Excuse me, are you Captain Sage?" he asked.

"I was, though I'm properly ranked as Commandant for my command of a fleet," I told him, motioning for the droids to continue taking some non-essentials off the ship, making room for more supplies.

"I'm...congratulations would be in order then, but I'm afraid I have some bad news for you then," he told me, and we went inside to talk. The Hai ship proved to have an ample supply of out of the way places for us to discuss things in private, and I was glad I did, because I didn't want my crew to see me shed a tear. James, the old captain I'd met back when this whole thing had started, almost a year ago now, was gone. As it turned out, Hestia was only a single jump away, and he, along with a group of rich people he'd gotten in with, had decided to make the trip to the Stock Exchange for a bit of money games.

"He had no living relatives, not that are on file anyway. His fortune is considerable, and his last will and testament said to find you, Commandant. He left his money to you. I believe, he also asked that you be given this," as he spoke, the man pulled a disk out of his pocket, handing it to me. We then discussed money, with his fortune, only a few million but still not small, ending up invested in repairs here on Martini and on Geminus. When that was done, he thanked me for my time, and I walked away, making my way to the bridge of the Shield Beetle, and handing the disk to STAR.

"Do you want me to play the contents, sir?" he asked, and I nodded, a bit numb. His holo self took the disk, and then held it in his hand, spinning the crystalline thing in the air as he ran his light over it, taking in every groove in the surface of the thing, eventually projecting a holo beside him, one of a much resplendent looking James, dressed in that same cotton made outfit he'd had on when I'd last seen him.

"Is it on?" he asked some off screen person, and a female voice, an AI probably, spoke up.

"Yes sir, we're recording now," she told him, and James nodded, grabbing a glass and sitting down in a seat that wasn't included in the recording.

"Okay, I'll make this quick then. Sage, I hope this message finds you well, though as you might already know, I'm not doing so hot. As in I kicked the bucket. Heh, no idea how it's going to happen, but then, I'm old. I was hoping to live long enough to make this offer in person, but I know that might not happen, so I'm recording this just in case it doesn't. You see, I have a job offer for you," as he spoke, he held up a hand, and a hologram inside his recording was displayed, one STAR quickly ballooned up to be easier to see.

"This ship, this awful, inefficient mess of a ship, is called a Korath Raider. If it's been long enough for you on the spaceways, you might have heard rumors of them, but if not, let me tell you, they're real. Aliens, like the Quarg or this chipmunk things past the wormhole in Ultima Thule, but far worse. They live on the coreward side of Syndicate space, and they're a damn menace to every captain that wants to make his way through some back roads for a nice honest smuggling job," as he spoke, stats of the ship popped up. It was...impressive. A match for anything in human space really, though given some of the data.

"I'm going to level with you. I mentioned I sold my fleet before ending up on New Boston, which was true, and yet left out an important detail or two. You see, my final mission had me plying those routes, on completely legitimate business, when we were ambushed by one of these things. They jumped in like a Quarg, and just attacked. No warning, no demands for surrender, just blasted away half my fleet, half my friends in a few minutes, then docked, stole everything not nailed down, and blew up the ship they'd stolen from for good measure before jumping out again," as he spoke his voice trembled a little. In fury or sadness, I couldn't tell. Probably a mixture of both honestly.

"I want the ship that did that. Those men and women were fine officers, and great friends. I helped deliver one of my captain's baby's, and both her, her husband, and their child were killed because of some damn pirates. So, here's what I'm offering. These are coordinates where these Korath tend to show up. Go there, with a good troop of marines and some battleships, and you should be able to take the thing down. This info, I think, is worth your time, if only because they have jump drives, something no other captain in the Republic will have," something about that seemed to amuse him, as he chuckled, then reached off screen for a bottle of liquor and took a long slow pull of it.

"More importantly, here's the engine signature of the ship that did this, that took my people from me. I know it's asking a lot, and I won't hold it against you if you choose not to do it, but this old man will rest easier knowing that some of these bastards are sucking vacuum right along with him. What do you say?" he said the last with a smirk and a bit of a twinkle in his eye, before the holo shut off, and I was left alone to stare at the space he'd occupied.


	9. Hunted and Hunters

The Durax system was remote, as in there was just a star, and a few gas giants. Even the moons of those gas giants were unremarkable, without any heavy metals in them at all. This meant, that the system wasn't much of a destination. A few pirates would sometimes hang around, launched from Stormhold in the nearby Alcyone system, but even they only came here to escape for a few minutes. That made it a place to trade illegal goods, things that were hard to smuggle even onto the almost lawless Pirate worlds. I wouldn't judge James, but the fact that he had been in the system at all spoke volumes of the life he'd been leading.

Still, I wasn't going in blind. I knew what I was up against, and I knew what I needed to win. My Shield Beetle fleet, augmented enough to make it forty five strong in addition to my command ship, went to the recesses of the Deep. There I purchased the biggest guns they had. Eight Heavy Lasers, and two Heavy Laser Turrets per ship, enough firepower that I could have taken on a the Quarg, with captains that knew their duty, and ships almost entirely automated, STAR slaving everything to his control and creating a fleet that flew almost as if it were a single vessel spread across space.

I didn't want just firepower though, so I trawled the bars along the ports, putting out the call to mercenary captains and commanders. I was a commodore, with my own fleet, but not nearly enough living hands, as androids wouldn't work without an AI to control them. No, I needed soldiers, real ones, and luckily, the Deep was a place to find them. After going over a dozen applications, I selected one that I felt had the most promise, meeting with Thurl, the Chief Warrant Officer of the group. Haggling a little on details, I hired his company, and soon found myself in the lifeless system, staring at nothing.

"Entering the Durax system now Captain. Not a thing to be seen," said the Merc's AI, NSB, pronounced Ennesby. I was standing on the bridge of their ship, watching as my own fleet entered the system beside us, the massive hulks of the Shield Beetles taking defensive positions around the Bactrian, Serial Peacemaker. The sensors lit up with a whole heap of nothing as they stretched out, one or two haulers jumping out just as we entered, and a pirate or two scanning us, before finding the marker naming us as protected from them, thanks to a bribe I'd paid on Stormhold.

"You almost sound disappointed," I chimed in from my...I suppose you could call it a throne pod. Apparently the leader of the mercenaries I'd hired, a Mr. Tagon, was very much nervous about having me on his vessel, mostly because of the payday I represented. So when I'd requested a seat on the bridge, to observe things, and later to be allowed onto the Korath ship we intended on capturing, he'd had his science advisor construct the thing, so I could be launched to safety, should the worst come to pass.

"No targets might mean a long wait. I mean, I've been reading the articles on the net about these Korath things. They appear randomly, so there's no guarantee that we'll find one any time soon, and that means waiting around with three hundred heavily armed, very bored, very strong men and women," commented the AI.

"We will not find one at all. This is a pointless endeavor and our time would be better spent exploring," chirped a communication channel, one opened to my fleet. Specifically this one was from the one armed Quarg who manned her(As I had bothered asking and found out) own ship which flew just close enough that I could spot it with the naked eye amid the sparkling stars.

"So you've said, Bandit, but James was fairly certain the Korath attacked him, and you must admit, the Syndicate has many reports of similar attacks," I countered, and I heard her make that tsk noise she did whenever she was annoyed, before the channel bleeped that the line was closed. According to Bandit, and backed up by Monkey Joe and the other Hai in my fleet, the Korath were a 'contained' species. Something they'd done had made the Drak, the oft spoken of but never seen protectors of the galaxy, mad, and so they'd been limited to a few worlds.

This, the aliens had assured me, meant they would not have access to jump drives. The Drak would never allow it, as it would defeat the purpose of collapsing the hyperspace routes into their space. Kevyn, the science adviser of the mercenaries, and STAR both assured me that doing that was impossible, but I put some stock into what the Quarg and Hai knew as well. After all, many things were impossible before, like traveling the stars, or defeating the Alphas. All things are impossible, until suddenly they aren't.

"We've got scanners up and running, if we get any cont-CONTACT!" the word was repeated, and then shouted at the top of his lungs, as the bald science advisor was looking through a sensor on the hull of the ship. Instantly the view ahead of us zoomed across the stellar distances, showing at first a single blue star, that then slowly began to resolve, taking shape out of starlight. Hull plates hardened, lights shone to life, and finally great engines roared in the endless sky.

"That...that's not possible," came Monkey Joe's voice over the comms as we all got a read on the ship. It was an ugly thing, inefficient and totally made to overpower through brute force rather than finesse or skill. A hammerhead fore, connected to an stern that obviously contained the engines and power sources. Readings on mass and output made the thing out to be a monster compared to the Bactrian I was in, but a Shield Beetle was nearly its equal, and with forty-five of the things, there wasn't going to be any contest.

"All guns! Disable only!" I ordered, and my fleet shot forward. Each pilot/captain knew their duty, and dove screaming towards the thing, which already had its shields up, and was prepared to fight. I knew from all the reports the Korath took no prisoners, and never offered surrender, so I'd told those under my command to offer no quarter in return. Only the hot green blaze of electrons as they exited the barrels of the ships' weapons, streaming like a river of power through space.

The shields of the enemy ship were strong, and one on one, they would have probably matched my ships in terms of defense. Their weapons were superior, however, as a red beam of light slammed into the leading Shield Beetle, stopping it cold, and even reversing its course, while also doing some damage to the ship at the same time. A follow up stroke sent yellowish bolts that spun as they tracked the ship it had hit away, while twin bays began to open, probably to launch attack fighters.

This resistance lasted less than a second though, as four-hundred-and-fifty beams poured from my fleet. The shields of the enemy vessel didn't even hold for a heartbeat, as each turret was directed by STAR, while the vessels themselves were piloted by my crew, each an expert I'd hired for just this purpose. When the moment had passed, the shield was down, and soon enough, the vessel itself was disabled, the hull scoured in a dozen places, and even punched through in one or two, while the ship itself began to drift.

"Alright, bring us in slowly, Xeno Team, are you ready to deploy?" asked Tagon into the comms as the Bactrian began to move towards the disabled alien vessel.

"Schlock here, my team is ready to get this shiny new gear our client bought us scuffed and dirty," confirmed the one in charge of the invasion team, and I heard the click and hiss of some of the weapons I'd bought for them for this mission. The latest rifles, grenades, and even armor, all of it speced out as the best the Deep had. Custom made too, so it was better than what you'd find at a typical outfitter, hopefully meaning no one would die on this trip.

"We'll be docked in a second, Sergeant. Maxim Twenty-Eight is in play, so be sure not to damage the goods," ordered Tago as we slid into place, a long tube structure coming out of our ship and slowly snaking its way towards the enemy. Within moments I could hear the whooping and hollaring of a dozen voices over the comm, as they literally dropped towards the enemy below.

"Maxim Twenty-Eight?" I asked curiously, as we waited, and the Captain seemed to be nervous about that, like I wasn't supposed to ask.

"If the price of collateral damage is high enough, you might be able to get paid for bringing ammunition home with you," offered Bandit over the comms, and I thought about that for a moment, while the Captain actually paled a little, at least until I smiled.

"I don't mind it to the crew, but I want that ship intact," I admitted, not mad about the order. After all, it made sense, and while Tagon and his crew knew I was loaded, they probably didn't know how much, despite my fleet of warships. Still, before he could say anything else, a hissing sound, cutting torches, could be heard over the open channel, followed a few moments later by a blast, as the crew cut through the Korath ship's hull, and I heard the sound of blaster fire begin to play out, making me more happy than I think it should have.


	10. Upgrades

The fight for the Korath Raider was thankfully, fairly brief. The enemy was numerous, but mostly contained to the front of the ship, with only a dozen or so in the rear section. This meant that the mercenaries could simply toss their nerve gas grenades(Illegal I know, but these bastards deserved little respect) down the corridors ahead of them. After about an hour of this, the Korath were all dead, their bodies littering the floor. I had immediately wanted to join the raiding party, but Tagon insisted that the employer was not to go there till Kevyn had okayed it. I wanted to object, but decided against it. Tagon and his crew knew their stuff, and I wasn't about to interfere where I didn't have to.

"Hmm, smells like it's rotten," I said at last as I stepped out of the connecting tube almost a day later.

"That's the anti-nerve agents we used to clean the gas up. Mind, I don't think it smelled good even before that," said Kevyn as we went over, Tagon insisting on accompanying me, along with Kevyn, the bald man having his glasses, actually high powered computers, display all the info he'd learned on the vessel for easy access.

"Actually, according to Xeno team, it smelled a lot worse than this before. The Korath are powerful, I'll give them that, but this ship is a real mess. Everything is overclocked to the point of burn out, even the heat reduction systems. The weapons and engines are so hot that in any ship except this one they'd have been an expanding cloud of gas after the first shot," he told me, gesturing towards one of the nearby weapon dimples, where a set of NDRs were going over it with tools, scanning it so STAR could compare the tech to known variants.

"Hmm, so you're saying they're running their ship too hard?" I asked, as we walked towards the engine room.

"They're running it hard enough that I doubt they're getting more than a year of use out of any one part, if even that much, and if even one part fails while they're in flight…" he lets that last statement trail off as we enter the engine room itself, where more of the androids, and even Bandit, were going over things, with the Quarg leaping around with those backwards jointed legs of hers, continually swearing in her own language as she stares at a large purple double helix. During one of her leaps, she notices us, and instantly turns herself around, landing lightly in front of the three of us.

"Commodore, this shouldn't be here. The Korath shouldn't have this!" she shouts the last, and gestures with her single arm towards the purple thing, which I don't recognize at all, but figure, considering her tone, must be the jump drive.

"So you say, but they do. Any theories on how?" I asked, and she begins to swear again, but then takes a deep breath and calms herself.

"I can only guess, but none of those guesses are quite what I'd want to be true. Half the systems on this ship are stolen technology, I recognize most of it, so either they're producing copies, or they're literally stealing from a dozen civilizations that shouldn't be defeatable," she complains.

"That would explain the mess. If these parts weren't originally designed to work together, then they might just be shoving stuff into their ships and seeing what works," commented Tagon, and I nod, walking up to the jump drive. I'm about to touch the thing, when Bandit firmly grabs my hand, squating from her usual three meter height to make the grab easier. Of course, as I turn to her, I notice that Tagon and Kevyn have stayed back a bit, and Kevyn is gesturing rather emphatically around him, saying something under his breath.

I don't need to be a genius to figure out what, either. The ship, he has to be talking about it. Mostly he has to be thinking about that nice, juicy reward that Republic offers for alien tech, with a special shout out to the jump drive, a prize that could probably pay their whole company for a year, or make them the best merc company out there, with the ability to jump around the galaxy at a whim. Tagon is obviously conflicted, the look on his face one of longing as he glances at the drive, only to cut Kevyn off with a gesture when he notices I'm looking at them.

"Captain, this capture has pleased me greatly," I say at last, pulling my wrist so that Bandit releases it.

"Yes, I'm very happy, and I think your crew deserves a reward for good work. I'm tripling our agreed upon price, and will allow you to keep the equipment I bought for you," I offered, and Kevyn's mouth just drooped open. The jump drive was a heady prize, but that sort of payout was more than half again what the Korath vessel and the outfits within it was worth. To so casually throw around that sort of cash said a lot.

"Sage, I have finished my analysis of this ship, and will be uploading an iteration of myself shortly to its systems. We will be able to leave for Stormhold within the hour," said one of the androids nearby as STAR spoke through it, and I nodded at that.

"Bandit, return to your ship, I believe I will ride along with the Raider on our journey back," I told her, and she looked at me once, before pointing towards the drive.

"Don't touch it, don't let STAR touch it," was all she said, before walking off, sprinting her way through the corridors. Kevyn and Tagon were then ordered back to the Serial Peacemaker, while I went up to the bridge. When we were all where we belonged, I gave the order, and felt the odd sensation of pull as blue light seemed to consume the world about me.


	11. Pirate's Life For Me

The smell of my own bridge was a comfort. The Hai Shield Beetle I'd claimed as my own was home now, at least in my mind, even if I had to climb the tree like structure to get to it, as Hai tended to build up rather than out due to some evolutionary implanted desires. Still, this was a far sight better than the Raider, and thinking of it, I looked at a display to find the crew of techs from the Republic already swarming over it. They'd apparently been waiting on Stormhold on a tip off that someone was bringing in a Raider, and had offered me four times what the local shipyard would for it.

Of course, I'd just given them the thing, after STAR's androids had studied the smelly ship and determined what was good enough for us to keep. Almost nothing, as it turned out. Sure, the weapons were good, but I prefered beam weapons to impact, and so did most of my captains, so we'd left all those on. The one beam weapon aboard was that kinetic thing, and I'd quickly decided it didn't do enough damage to be useful, so the Republic was welcome to the thing if they thought it would help.

In the end, the only things I'd taken from the Korath ship was the drive, its heat shunt system, and is computer core. The the jump drive was already being installed in my personal ship, and the core as well, which STAR was happy to play around in. The thing was a combination of different techs, he'd told me, much more advanced than anything else the ship had had on it. It included a shield generator, a capacitor for energy storage, and even what he'd referred to as memetic polyalloy repair system.

"Bringing everything online now, Sage," said the AI, transferring his data core, the heart of the original into the new system. The hologram of him shimmered a little, and then I got a lesson in asking more questions, as suddenly a silver sheen covered everything, both inside and outside, startling me and making me draw my personal weapon, whipping the plasma blade out as if I expected an attack.

"Sir, it's alright, just testing the alloy. If I'm right I think I can...yes," as he spoke, the silver sheen vanished, fading back into the colors I was used to, but better. Everything appeared brighter, and it took me a moment to figure out why, as the ship had cleaned itself up, and even repaired a few dents in the walls that I'd noticed only vaguely. A quick gesture brought up external cams, and I could see that the hull had been similarly fixed, with many scorch and score marks that I'd earned since taking command now looking pristine.

"Odd, I can actually feel the wind now, as if the ship were my skin," he said in a distant tone, and then the bridge door hissed open. One of the androids that ran the ship walked in, and between one step and another, the holo flew into it, the android's outer chassis turning into liquid silver. When the liquid metal had passed over it, the droid was now different. Leaner, without the boxy look that was the normal. It also had a face, a perfect copy of STAR's holo face, as he looked himself up and down, moving his hands over his 'skin'.

"Incredible, is this how you organics feel all the time?" he asked, pushing against his silver toned skin, and I just stared for a long moment, before smiling at him. I nodded, and we discussed this turn. The core technology was almost as great a find as the jump drive itself, with it, STAR could use ambient matter and energy to repair our hull. He then suggested that we might disable another raider, for more of these techs.

"I'll contact Tagon then, hopefully he's up for another job," I said, and began to dial up his comm, only for the floating display to vanish as STAR dismissed it.

"Sir, I had some time to study the jump drive. While it is useful to organics only when traveling at interstellar distances, due to the kinetic transference principle, I believe I can use it for short range jumps far more easily, and simply extract the parts we desire," he said this, and then demonstrated, a blue glow suddenly hovering in the androids hand, which resolved into a tool I knew was in a locker five decks below us. A few moments later, I ordered the fleet up. We had some raiding to do.


	12. Curtain Begins to Rise

Four weeks later, the fleet docked at Stormhold. Forty-five ships of a size that matched the largest warships in the Republic. Equipped with enough firepower that nothing on the planet could have matched us. Idly, I toyed with the idea of conquest. It would only have taken a single message, and we could have been fighting the defenses of the whole planet, and probably won. Before I could touch the comms though, we got the typical message, actually sounding bored about my warfleet, asking for the typical 'docking fee', read bribe. I decided for now to just land, my ships falling into the assigned berths easily.

"All captains, you're free for the day while STAR checks the ships over one last time. Rest well tonight, we'll be going into Korath space itself tomorrow," I ordered, and heard a few acknowledgements.

"Commodore, Bandit and I are going to visit a cafe nearby for some quick food that's not ship rations. If you're up for it, we'd like you to join us," offered Monkey Joe, and I considered it for a moment, then shrugged.

"I'll be right there, Joe," I told her, and got a happy chitter in return. I then went over the typical checks with STAR to make sure everything was stepped down and we were at rest state, before walking out of my bridge. Once outside, I turned a moment to look as my ship, and its sisters, shimmered in the early morning sun. Small patches of silver dotted the hulls as STAR reinforced or repaired sections, and I smiled at that, before joining the Quarg and Hai women at a nearby bus stop. We exchanged a few pleasantries, but I got the impression they wanted to discuss something deeper, so I let them hold their silence, until we were all sitting around a table.

"What is this about, ladies?" I asked at last, sipping at my drink, and the two turned to each other. It was, if I were honest, amusing to see the oddly human Quarg, and the not even close to human Hai having almost duplicate expressions, but I was struck a bit by how serious they appeared.

"Commodore...Sage, I know why you're planning on doing this, this other human, James, meant a lot to you," began Bandit, her one arm gesturing emphatically towards me.

"I don't know about that, honestly. I knew the old man for only a few weeks, but it was nice to find a friendly face. So many on New Boston, my homeworld, were not very nice due to some issues with my family. James treated me like...like an apprentice I'd suppose. Without him I'd probably have wandered a lot more south, and probably never found the Hai at all," I explain to the pair, and they seem to take a moment to process that. I hadn't actually shared much info about James after all, but still, I think the tone of my voice told the two aliens enough.

"Still, he trusted me with this, and I want to see the duty he gave me through to the end. Even in three weeks, defeating almost four dozen Korath ships, we haven't found the one that got him," I say this as the food arrives, and I quickly jam a breadstick into my mouth, chewing it very deliberately so the pair can have a moment. They speak in that chittering Hai language for a moment before Joe turns to me.

"So you're planning this venture merely for vengeance?" she asks.

"Not merely, though that's a lot of the reason. Even more, I want to see if the Korath have any more toys we can steal, and hopefully convince them to stay out of human space," I say at last, swallowing the mouthful.

"We have not lost a ship yet to this quest, but Korath space itself...If they have jump drives, it is not certain what defenses their worlds might have. We believe, given this, it might be best to contact the Drak instead. Allow them to deal with this," said Bandit, and I mulled that over for a moment. The Drak, the legendary, oft mentioned 'Guardians of Peace'. Stories of them were common among aliens, but to date, no human had seen one. Still, their influence was felt, as several worlds were in states that spoke of having great civilizations on them once, reduced to ash with weapons humans simply couldn't conceive of.

"And how would we go about getting their attention?" I asked, considering it. I was a free spirit, a man of a line who wished to roam the stars forever. The idea of the Drak telling me where I could and could not go sounded horrible, and yet, I knew that sometimes limits did need to be set. If I could speak to one, I would at least listen to what it had to say. I might not go along with it, but I'd listen.

"The Ring in Hai space is capable of establishing a communication line with some of them," suggested Bandit, and I raised an eyebrow.

"There's a Quarg Ring in Hai space?" I asked, curious now. I hadn't adventured far in Hai space. I wanted to, mind, but at the time, I'd also hoped to run into Bernard and his crew, so I'd rushed to the wormhole. Then the bombings had happened, and then this quest. I still planned on doing the adventuring, but for now, I had other priorities.

"Yes, why else would a Quarg have been nearby?" she countered, as if the idea of not being near one of their Rings was unthinkable. I would have questioned that, but then I figured it might really have been that way. After all, One Armed Bandit hadn't given me much of her personal story. I didn't even know how she'd lost her arm, which I'd figured was the reason at the time for her being away from her people.

"Alright, and what would the Drak do in this case?" I questioned, moving the conversation back on track.

"It depends. Jump drives are forbidden to certain species, with the Korath being one of those. Either someone is supplying them, which means the consequences will fall on them, or the Korath are somehow stealing or producing them. In the former, likely the Drak will destroy their fleets. In the latter, whatever shipyards they have," said Bandit, and I nodded again, starting on my meal again to give me a moment to think. The ladies, after a few seconds, did likewise, and we ate in silence as I ran over everything in my head.

"Alright, I've made my decision," I said at last, as I downed the last slice of my pizza, and the two looked at me expectantly.

"We're going to go to Korath space, just a quick look, with the whole fleet in tow just in case it gets dicey. We know where one of their systems is, Kor Zena'i, right off the Polaris system. Shangri-La is in that system. If we have to jump out quick, that would be a place to fall back to. If the Korath pursue, they have the best chance of helping us. If what we find is bad enough, we'll hightail it to this ring, and call in the Drak. Otherwise, we fight until we find the ship I'm looking for. I want to be the one to strike them down, not some mystical space gods," I tell them, and what followed after was silence, as they both seemed to consider my words, before finally, Monkey Joe rose.

"That is the best we can hope for, and it allows us to inform the Drak of what's going on in more detail. I believe it is acceptable," she said at last, and Bandit soon stood with her, nodding, before striding off in that loping gait of her's. I watch the pair leave, and climb onto a bus. I know this isn't the last I'll hear of this, but it is probably the best outcome I could hope for. Paying our tab, I soon follow the pair, so I can return to my ship. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day after all.


	13. Vengeance for the Fallen

"Entering jump in five seconds, all ships, prepare for combat," I order, the line of warships behind me looking almost like a glistening silver band across space as STAR allows us to nearly touch thanks to his coordination. I watch my screen, waiting for the heady rush, and then feel the weightlessness of the blue light as my ship leaps out of the Polaris system, and into the Korath system nearby. When the light fades, my hands go instantly to the controls, throwing out every scan I can to find the Korath.

"I think we were expected, sir," says the AI, and I look up towards a display, and want to curse, but can't think of a single swear that's adequate to the task at hand. In front of my fleet, my seemingly invulnerable horde, was a fleet of seemingly equal strength. A full compliment of twenty five of the Korath Raiders, and five unknown ships of similar make, but far large. Ton for ton, they actually had us beat a little on mass, and I instantly started to call up the map to plot a return jump, only for my hand to freeze as a familiar beeping comes from the console nearby.

"Sage, we appear to have an incoming transmission, from the foremost ship in the nearby fleet," says STAR, and I find my brain refuses to process that. The Korath never tried to speak to me, or anyone else I knew of before. For them to do so was wildly out of character, and yet, it was just interesting enough to make staying here worth it despite the danger.

"STAR, patch us through, and get the other captains on the line, but no chatter from them unless it's important," I order, and soon have the faces of my crew floating in the air behind a screen that soon shows the Korath commander, whose face appears to be grinning at me, though it was hard to tell with the way they looked.

"This is Commodore Sage, independent trader, to whom am I speaking?" I ask.

"Kon trath-ah, humani kot," says a harsh voice, spitting out the syllables at me.

"STAR, do you have that language on file?" I asked, hoping that somehow we'd know what he was saying. Unfortunately, the android nearby shook his head.

"I'm afraid not, Commodore," he informed me, and this time I did swear, but before I could do much, Bandit's face pulled itself out of the crowd, and floated in front of me.

"Sage, I know a little of the Korath tongue, if you'll indulge me?" she offered, and I motioned for her to continue. What followed was something like a shouting match in a language I couldn't understand, and more than once I nearly ordered the fleet to fire, but I held off. I didn't want to interrupt the discussion, though, in the middle of it, STAR leaned closer to me.

"Commodore, the lead ship of that formation, it's the one," he told me, and then displayed a small screen over his hand. On it was the scan James had given us of the ship that had so decimated his trade fleet, while beside it was the ship currently talking to one of my captains. The two had a few differences, but luckily James had encountered them only a year or so ago, and engines didn't change that much in that time.

"Disturbing," was all I said, waving him off as Bandit seemed to finish with her discussion.

"What do you have for me?" I asked the Quarg.

"Not much, I'm afraid to say. I can understand maybe one word out of every three, but if I'm right, these ships are assembled to do battle with us," she said, and I nodded.

"They knew we were coming?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. They knew about our taking their vessels, and that may have told them we were stealing drives, but I have no idea how they'd know we'd be here," she admitted.

"Then why haven't they attacked?" I followed, trying to understand the logic of our situation, as the two fleets stared at each other.

"That...I believe they wanted honorable combat. They feel that if we defeat them here, and now, we'll be adding them to our procession. Korath believe that when they die in battle, they are added to the army of the one who defeated them. To die to a strong opponent is considered an honor, and apparently they feel we're quite strong indeed," she told me, and I nodded, before pressing a few buttons on my controls.

"All captains, prepare for combat. STAR, coordinate our attacks. Focus fire on the front ship first, then each in turn. I want these ships to be expanding clouds in the hour," I ordered, getting several confirmations. After that, I focused on the Korath captain again.

"Bandit, please tell him I accept his challenge, but wish to know one thing. How long has he been the captain of his vessel?" Bandit's eyebrow raised up quizzically, but she asked the question without needing to be told why. The Korath captain answered with a tone that said he was curious as well.

"If I'm right about the time units difference, somewhere in the area of twenty years, Commodore," she said, and I smiled at this, nodding.

"Alright, STAR, let's move forward," I ordered, and then felt the shudder of the deck as my ship began to lead the charge. The rest of my fleet formed around me, ships above, below, and to the side, a solid wall of Shield Beetles that came on like a silver wave. The Korath ships, seeing our advance, charged as well. Ragged lines, not the sharp, crisp ones we had. Each ship seemed to be trying to accelerate ahead of the pack, their powerful engines faster than ours, but hotter too, giving us plenty of heat to lock onto.

Then the battle was joined. At four light seconds away, our beams fired, a torrent of green light shining from each of us towards the enemy. The lead Korath ship, the one that had so harmed James, was engulfed in that river of power. Shields lasted a heartbeat against such an assault, and the hull only a few seconds longer. When the light faded, the ship wasn't there anymore, not a single gram of its hull solid enough to be seen by the naked eye, as every atom was carried away in the light of vengeance.

The rest of the fleet, seeing their leader dispatched with such ease, fired into my fleet. Red beams pushing my ships away, the bolts like swirling stars slamming into shields, doing great damage. But they picked their targets without coordination, without thought to the overall battle save a few that focused on my own ship. The rest picked randomly from amid my fleet, and I quickly showed them the folly of such disorganization, as I picked targets, and my fleet destroyed them, the first pass between our fleets leaving a good half of my fleet with weakened shields, but more than a quarter of theirs were just gone.

The larger ships hit us next, the huge behemoths were strong. Enough so that my beams took several seconds to destroy them, but destroy them we did. By the time they had come out on the other side, two of the five were simply gone, and a third was drifting, dead in space. And while they accelerated away faster due to their engines, my fleet turned faster, and slammed into their rear. With none of their forward facing weapons able to be brought to bear, we could fight with impunity.

A few minutes was all it took, blasting away the Raiders, and disabling the remaining 'World-Ships' as Bandit called them. When it was done, STAR brought us to bear, and we docked with the large vessels, finding only a few things of note in their hold. No jump drives, sadly, but a core far larger than the one of the Raiders. Taking that filled our hold, but we were able to transfer them between vessels, so that three of the massive computers were in my fleet, waiting to be installed when we returned to human space.

"James, you can rest easy now," I told to no one, and then made ready to leave. Just before we did, however, another transmission came, from a small station orbiting one of the worlds in the system. Curious, I answered.

"This is the Foremost of the Korath-Ah. Warrior, you are to be granted an audience with me. Dock with my station, and I will receive you as befits a true paragon of the dance of death such as yourself," said the transmission simply, and then cut off.


	14. The Fate of All Empires

The station was quiet. No, that wasn't quite right. The station had noise, but not the noise of a station. The slamming, metallic sounds as ships dock and undock, the hiss and bubble as fuel is pumped between tanks, or the grinding as dents were buffed out. No, this station had a different set of noises. A gurgling noise, as outside the walls, the hull was almost solid silver, the memetic polyalloy, liquid metal, was taking shape, growing out like living flesh. The inside was not bare of this silver sheen either, with many a surface shimmering in the low light as it morphed into the hall I walked down.

Behind me were the figures of Joe, Bandit, and four of my other captains. Outside, with weapons trained on the station, were the rest of my fleet, ready to atomize our killers should it come to that. I doubted it would, however. After all, if they'd wanted to kill us, there were easier ways. The hull showed that off clearly, and I had some suspicions on what exactly the battle in space had meant, as it had been just a little too perfect. Each side had had almost equal force in terms of power and mass. That sort of setup didn't happen by chance.

"Greetings to you, Warriors," said the voice from before, and confirmed it had been the speaker, not some translator, doing the talking. The words echoed around us, as if coming from the hull, and both the aliens, and the three women and man in power suits, instantly scanned the room, drawing weapons. I didn't bother, however, instead continuing to walk forward, out into what would have looked like a throne room, with a dias and everything. I knew it was a recent addition to the station though, the silver walls only just taking on other colors as I watched.

"And to you, Foremost of the Korath-Ah," I said in stride, coming up to the foot of the dias and standing there. Before me was...the oldest man I'd ever seen. He wasn't human, that was for sure, but he appeared to be close to it. However, even if he wasn't human, the shaky way his limbs moved, the fact that silver liquid was obviously assisting him meant this being before me was ancient.

"You must have questions, in regards to the great contest. Ask them, and I shall answer as best I can," he offered, and Bandit, her hands holding twin plasma blades, stepped forward, brandishing one of her weapons, and trying to stand up tall. I put a hand on her hip, and her gaze looks down at me. She appears about to object, but I shake my head, and the Quarg at last stands down.

"I have many questions, but first, I'm going to ask this one, as it seems the most relevant. How many Korath-Ah were on those ships. Real ones?" I asked, and I heard at least one of my captains gasp, though I didn't know which. The old man before me, just stared for a moment, then chuckled in an all too human way.

"And why do you suspect that there was anything other than Korath-Ah on those vessels?" he asked plainly, coughing once, and putting a four fingered, two thumbed hand to his chest, before sitting up straight to face me.

"Because that fight was too easy. We won without a single casualty, just some damage. More, I can see the hull of this station. You're making more ships, a lot of them. Enough that, if I were to hazard a guess, you could replace every ship in that force. Yet, despite this, I saw not a single living being on this station. Put two and two together there, and I surmise that those ships, even though we saw the people manning them, were manned by androids like the ones on our own ships, and you were here giving the orders. Am I wrong?" I ask, and the old man barks out a laugh again, before shaking his head.

"You are not, Young Warrior. The Raiders and World-Ships you faced were of the Korath-Ah, the Caste of War of the Korath People. Long ago, they would have been manned by living examples of us, but today, too few remain, and those that do, are like myself, husks of a bygone day," as he spoke, he waved his hand, and I was witness to his history, played out in moving silver scenes, as forms rose from the floor, and acted out battles, both flying in ships, and fighting armies on the ground. It was a grisly sight, to say the least, as the Korath-Ah seemed to revel in butchery and destruction.

"Before the Drak unmade us, we were the greatest conquers this galaxy had ever seen. The Ah, the First, leaving behind our worlds, and venturing forth to claim worlds in the name of the Korath. With Silver Blood, any technology we found was ours, and any advantage an enemy had was lost the moment after we captured it," as he spoke, the scenes were replaced with a galactic map, with worlds that were branded with what I now knew to be the symbol of the Korath.

"Then the Drak stopped you?" I guessed, and the Foremost shook his head.

"The Drak would not care about such. To them, one species is as good or as bad as another. No, they would not have cared one wit about the Korath-Ah's conquest, even should it come to dominate the galaxy," he explained.

"No, what they feared was the Za. The Korath-Za, the Last. We were the Caste of War, always the ones who expanded our reach through martial effort and conquest. The Za were the opposite. The expanded inward, always looking to design the best weapons, they were the Caste of Science," and the scenes replayed, this time with Korath-Za, not conquering, but building. First forging swords, then guns, and finally weapons of all manners of descriptions, including some I simply had no name for.

"The Korath-Za were the ones who brought the Drak down upon us. They were the ones who believed that the sharpest blade could be made by continual use. So they devised the Twin Blades of Korath. The Kor Mereti and the Kor Sestor," and now the scenes were replaced with obvious robots. Boxy looking things, that actually resembled the NDRs back on my own ships, but ones obviously designed for more warlike purposes. The Korath-Za who built them set them against each other the moment they were ready, and in the crossfire of the two, both their makers died.

"I see. They made robots to fight each other, and with the Silver Blood you use, they'd be able continuously improve, until they were literally unstoppable," this got a very nice swear from Bandit as I spoke, and I actually had to wonder about things.

"What happened to them?" I asked, watching the scene continue, the robots always getting better as the hit each other harder and faster.

"The Drak noticed this battle, this war amongst the Endless Sky, space as you would call it. They collapsed the hyperspace lanes leading to our space, and then sealed us in. We fought, as we were want to do, but our greatest weapons were naught but toys to the Drak, and they swept us aside, and broke our people," this time no scene played, nothing, just emptiness as the silver liquid melted into the floor.

"So we were cast out of the stars, and made low. To the galactic north, I believe you will still find the Twin Blades, always slashing at each other, never strong enough to conquer one another," he said, and then displayed a small area of space. I quickly took a shot of it with a small recorder I had, to give the information to STAR later.

"What changed then? Obviously, you are no longer cast low, considering this station," I asked, gesturing all around us, and the Foremost seemed to consider the question for a moment, before finally responding.

"The Korath-Ah are dying. Only a handful of us, a few hundred, remain. The Drak did not consider that to cage us, was to kill us. They recognize that they erred, and though they could not repair us as they hoped, they could offer us solace in our final days. All the Korath-Ah live now as I do, within the great metal wombs. We send out memories of our fallen comrades into the stars, to conquer and do battle. Should our visions of the past fall, they give gifts to those who defeat them. Should they succeed, the Foremost who made them gains new resources," he explained simply.

I wanted to hate him for that, as such thinking killed humans, a lot of them, and yet...what was left to hate? Though he spoke, this old, decrepit man, kept alive by machines I had no doubt he couldn't understand, probably made by the Korath-Za or maybe even the Drak themselves. This was a man in his twilight years, so far lost in his memories of past glory that he couldn't see what was in front of him. The technology he commanded, if he put his mind to it, could make the world, the blasted scarred world below this station, bloom with life again. What did he use it for? To destroy and conquer, because it was all he knew how to do.

"So, you took from human ships, digesting their resources here into more ships. Is that why you can speak Gal-Standard?" I asked, and he nodded, a few images popping out of the walls of books and players and various other media. Things the ships he'd captured and ransacked had likely had on them. These were the things he'd learned my people's tongue from, even as he'd murdered them.

"How much longer can you survive like this?" I asked at last, and he just shrugged.

"My end comes, it could be within the year, or a hundred years from now, but when I die, it will be the death knell of my people," he said, with a defeated tone in his voice.

"Then you will be forgotten. Such is the way of all conquerors. To live in glory, and die in ignominy," I said at last, and then turned on my heel. We were done here. The old man didn't stop us as we left, nothing came to attack us. I knew I should blow this place away, destroy this fool of a man who was so lost in the past. But I couldn't. The Drak, as much as I felt they sounded terrible, had done this to him. I hated them, not him. I didn't pity him either. I simply felt nothing for him, and soon I launched away, setting course, and jumping away into Polaris, planning to return for more of the larger cores once I'd gotten the ones I'd already taken installed.


	15. The First One Falls

Another three weeks in Korath space, and we had the larger cores in abundance, and enough jump drives to more than double the size of my current fleet when we returned to Hai space. After that, I wasn't sure what I would do. There was the matter of the Unfettered Hai. Joe had spoken of them before as having been 'touched' by the Drak in the same way as the Korath. Better, there was the Korath-Za and the Twin Blades of the Kor-Mereti and Kor Sestor. I wanted to know the story there too, but in any case, a larger fleet would help.

"Commencing Jump to Polaris System," said STAR, as the blue light consumed the world. Behind us was Korath Space, seven systems of nothing but old men and women, so caught up in their past glory that they failed to see a future for themselves beyond it. The weightless sensation came to me then, and the clocks ticked over a day as the jump ended. The instant we were in system, I set course for Shangri-La. Then I stopped, as the scene before me began to come into focus.

Shangri-La was a port system, where one could purchase a ship hull, and that meant it was typically well defended, with great hulks, tiny merchants, and everything in between flying in and out constantly. Right now, there was none of that. The planet wasn't dead or anything, just no one in the scanners was moving, and as I watched, a fleet launched off the surface, in a way that said something particular. More than a hundred Syndicate Protectors with their odd design, and all the attendant vessels, rose towards us, and I stopped, waiting to see what this meant.

"All ships, hold position," I ordered, and every ship in my fleet slid to a stop beside me, with every five ships forming into a massive V, filling the skies over the planet with metal. Before us, the fleet of odd ships seemed to try to get into similar formations, but they seemed to get in each other's way, or to slot themselves in where they didn't really fit. Then the last ship came into sight, and I gripped my seat in frustration. It was a Falcon, and I didn't even need STAR's readouts to tell me which one.

"Receiving transmission, shall I put it on screen?" asked the AI, and I nodded, waiting as the screen before me resolved into a familiar man, and a familiar formation of five seats. Bernard, but alone this time, rather than with the rest of his group.

"Mr. Sage, it have been too long since you last slipped through my fingers," he said, simply, and I growled something at him, before leaning back in my chair and sighing.

"You know what, I don't really feel like bantering today, so I'll offer you this one chance to just leave. My fleet out masses and overpowers your's by a significant margin," I advised him, and as if to make my point, several of my ships began to charge weapons, with his fleet seeming to freeze, as the crews of those ships considered what they were a part of.

"Now, now, Mr. Sage, you above all people should know that power isn't everything. Sometimes it is foresight and planning that wins the day, and sometimes it is simple luck. Today, I'm afraid, our plans are simply too good for your luck," as he spoke, a transmission came from every ship in his fleet, and I could hear it reverberating along my hull as the sheer weight of the message being repeated by so many vessels refused to be ignored.

"For instance, I know your ships are crewed by NDR-114s, the newest model. However, such androids have issues of their own. For instance, they have a shutdown code built into them," he said the last with a very evil smirk, and I turned, looking at STAR's body on my bridge. The lith, metallic form of my AI was moving a little erratically, to be sure, but it didn't appear shutdown, and as I watched, he broke through whatever was affecting him.

"Hmm, now that would be a problem, if my droids weren't custom jobs," I said, getting my own rather evil smirk, as STAR walked over to me, then made a motion where he grabbed his eye and stuck his tongue out at the man on the other side of the monitor, who appeared flabbergasted.

"All ships, open fire on that Falcon," I ordered, and with the speed of a tide, we started forward. Bernard started to say something, but before he could do much, a wash of green light struck his vessel. Where the Raiders at least had the power to hold for a moment against this power, the Falcon was far outclassed. I did get a satisfying view though, as the hull around Bernard buckled, pushed inwards, and then split apart. The image of him being vaporized, his skin burning away, and his scream of pain over the comms...I considered myself a moral man, if not a good one. But it made me very, very happy to see him die.

"Okay, anyone else want to play?" I asked, and the Protectors, after a moment's hesitation, all high tailed it. Where the Korath would have thrown themselves at us regardless, this bunch fled. Mind, I noticed that they were doing so in formation. So this was all one group. Idly, I thought about ending them here, as they might threaten us down the line, but by the time I'd had that though, fully half the fleet was gone, and I decided not to bother, instead landing on Shangri-La, as the ports seem to come back to life.

Oddly, I was unable to find a port authority that knew what had happened. Bernard, to their knowledge, was a representative of the Syndicate that owned Shangri-La. He hadn't threatened, hadn't forced, hadn't done anything other than slipped into power. That was unusual, as to fake those sort of credentials was...not unbelievable, but even for my resources it would have been hard. Still, I filed that away for later. The next day, with the cores installed on my ships, I started north, towards the unknown Korath-Za space, to find out what was going on there.


	16. Secrets and Lies

I stormed into the ring, my eye full of fire, and my feet slamming hard onto the cold metal of the docking pad. Around me, Quarg moved, their massive bodies agilely leaping out of the way as I plowed through them. The first one I found in a uniform, I turned towards, while behind me, I could hear Bandit follow. She'd been on my ship, with her's slaved to mine after our 'discussion' of what I'd seen, and more importantly, her confession. She currently held her second plasma blade in her jaws, her teeth clenched around the hilt, as if expecting battle. What she was really doing was keeping herself from grinding her teeth, something I was doing quite a lot of.

"Where is the Speaker of this Ring?" I demanded, pointing an accusing finger at the Quarg in front of me. The tall alien seemed less than inclined to give me information, but then Bandit flashed her blade once, the blue glow of plasma covering the sword as it sharpened the edge to the thickness of a molecule. I don't know if she was threatening him for my sake, or just doing it because she was frustrated herself, but he gave in, and with a few quick comms, we were on a transport, arriving at a non-descript looking building, and walking inside.

"You should show respect. Remember what I told you," said Bandit, as she took the blade from her mouth, and slid it back into the sheath beside the one she typically held in her hand. I didn't ignore her, I will say that much, but I was still fuming as I walked into the building, and soon found myself standing in something that appeared to be a waiting room, if one designed for someone almost twice my height. It took only a moment for me to be admitted into the Speaker's chamber, something that resembled a low level bureaucrats office.

"Mr. Sage, I was told you wished to speak to me," said a male sounding voice, and I looked up to see the Quarg sitting in a chair behind a desk. He was taller than most, almost five meters rather than the average three, but I would hardly be intimidated now, and took the seat across from him.

"How long?" I demanded, as the seat rose so I was at eye level with him, the scene probably amusing as it had all the appearance of a small child accusing an adult.

"Hmm, now that is a leading question. I can assume many things from it, but I shall instead ask you to clarify your statement," he said in a way that was just below patronizing. Fed up with it, I held out a palm, feeling the silver goo in it shift and mold until it became a holographic display, which then projected a scene in the air before me.

"How long have you know those machines were doing this?" I demanded again, in a hushed tone this time, as the view panned over the scene. It was a horrid one, of sentients, Korath if you looked closely enough, being herded around like pack animals. Their bodies were not marked, and in fact, looked healthy to someone not looking closely, but even in the recording you could see the dead look in their eyes. They were a people without hope, without life, just with existence.

"Ah, the Harvest," he said, in an almost casual way, and I barely kept myself from flinging a weapon of some sort at him. Behind me, I remembered the day I had arrived here in Korath-Za space. It had turned out that while the Ah were barely alive anymore, with only a few of their number remaining, the Za were actually thriving. A few planets and stations remained of their space, and I found many a city standing there, with a few scars here and there to show what had happened some centuries ago, great battles fought that had wounded entire worlds.

I hadn't been able to talk to these, and while Bandit understood them, she would only say that we should travel to the galactic east. With nothing else to go on, I had done just that, and discovered the Ring. A Quarg Ringworld, built in this out of the way place. Here I witness their fleets, the graceful wings of Wardragons, the powerful turns of Skylarks, moving about. Some vanished in flashes of blue light, while others returned in it, their hulls marked with signs of a battle hard fought.

Docking, I questioned those around me. The Korath-Za, they claimed, were their wards, to defend from the great enemy to the east, and they quickly advised me not to make my way there, as it would be dangerous, even for my fleet. I hadn't listened, of course. I was a Sage, I was an explorer, and here was the edge of the unknown, it was not in my nature to back down. So refueled and repaired, we leapt out towards the system connected to the Ring by a hyperspace lane.

I was made to regret that decision almost instantly, as I stumbled into a battle between the Quarg, and two unknown foes, who shot at each other as much as the aliens. The skylances, the fabled beam turrets of the Quarg, were tearing through their foes, undoing them one after another. But even this seemed only to hold back a tide of war, one I threw myself into. With STAR's help, the fleet was able to destroy many of the ships, but when I tried to dock with one that I'd disabled, I found myself nearly destroyed, as the ship selfdestructred, rather than allowing me to take anything from it.

The Quarg thanked me for the aid, but again, advised me to turn back. I once more refused, and then got a look at what they didn't want me to see. Worlds, many worlds, laid waste by war. This had been, according to the Korath-Ah, the heart of their empire once, and now, while the Korath-Za remained on a few worlds, many more were simply gone. But oddly, not in the same way. Every world was different, with different weapons, and different ways of dying. Still, I adventured onwards, finally encountering the Twin Blades, the Mereti and Sestor.

They were the ships that had been attacking the Quarg, but in numbers I had never seen before. A thousand ships of varying sizes, all battling each other amongst the stars. Even when I entered the system their war did not stop, only a few small groups breaking off to do battle with me. I fought them off, their weapons penetrating my shields somehow, and eventually forcing me to land on a planet, where, oddly, they backed off. The moment my hull touched the atmosphere, the ships broke away, and after landing to rest, we launched again, flying further into their space.

Everywhere, it was the same, until finally, we found the world at the center of one, the Mereti world, Sapira Mereti. It was there that I found them. The Korath-Za who still lived here, the Harvest as the Quarg Speaker called it. The horror of it gave pause to my crews, as we watched a load of Korath-Za be shoved into a spaceport, and then transported to the station waiting in space. My sensors told me what was happening in their easily enough, as the Mereti did not hide their atrocities, but rather, reveled in them.

The Korath-Za who lived beyond the Ring were being used as spare parts. Literally torn apart, and bits of them used to close gaps in the Mereti's systems. STAR reasoned, later, that it was a protection of some kind the Za had built into their weapons, they they needed a Korath to pilot them, but the had never specified in what condition the pilot needed to be in. So being placed all over the ship, an eye here, a limb there, and a brain to control it all, fulfilled the requirement in the most gruesome way possible.

"Yes, the Harvest," I said, sneering, and the Speaker sighed in a most human way, his long arm coming up to rub at the bridge of his nose. Beside me, Bandit looked ashamed, but I didn't see that, as my eyes were totally focused on the Speaker.

"We will not order you to leave this pace, but I must ask that you not tell the Korath-Za of this revelation of yours," he said as if he were asking me to step out into the hall and get him a glass of water.

"And why not?" I responded, a bit of acid seeping into my voice.

"Because we can only protect them from the Automata, not from themselves, and if they knew of these events, there would be few ways to keep them from acting against their best interest," he told me, and I leaned back in my chair. In my head, I counted backwards from ten, trying to let the anger and rage I felt seep from my bones. It didn't succeed completely, but when I breathed out, letting go of a breath I'd been holding, I was calmer.

"Then why don't you stop it? Your ships are powerful," I said the last as a statement of fact, not as a question.

"You think we wouldn't, if we could? Powerful though our vessels are, they have their limits, and the very idea of the Mereti and Sestor is they they are always improving. They adapted long ago so that all we might do is contain them, not destroy them," he said, and I was about to respond, when Bandit placed her hand on my shoulder. I almost punched her for it, but the look on her face, held me back, and I gave the matter a bit of thought instead.

"The shield penetration of their weapons. That's to defeat you, isn't it?" I said, and the Speaker nodded.

"It is. Our shields are strong, our weapons even more so, but the hulls of our ships? No, those are weak, for we never before had to have strong metals, and seeing that weakness, the Automata adapted weapons that are completely unique, with the ability to penetrate the shields of our vessels," he explained.

"So you chose to become the guardians, rather than destroy them?" I asked, and the Speaker shook his head.

"No, we did not choose this existence. This was what the Drak asked of us, helping us to build this Ring, and instructing us to keep safe the Korath-Za. It was our own hubris that caused us to believe we could do more, and it is what helped the Automata to create their fearsome weapons," he said, the sadness in his voice almost palpable.

"And again, it comes back to the Drak. Always them interfering," I say, disdain in my tone, and my body language easily seen by the Quarg, who looked none too pleased with my statement.

"Indeed, all life in this galaxy owes a great deal to them. They are the oldest, the wisest amongst the stars. Your people are yet young, and you yourself more so than that. Perhaps when you have traveled farther, and seen more, you will learn that the Drak only have your best interests at heart. They are as close to gods as any being the Quarg have yet met, and we have met many," he told me in that lecturing voice one tended to get explaining something to children that is still far beyond their years. I just barked a laugh.

"The Drak are no where near gods," I told him, and he looked at me, very concerned.

"And how would you know that, young one?" he asked simply, and I smirked at him, while leaning forward.

"Because I killed one. Gods don't die," I responded just as simply.


	17. If the Gods themselves may die...

"That...that is simply not possible, your fleet is…" he let that trail off as I leaned forward, the player in my hand projecting a new image, this one of my fleet forming up around an odd looking ship. Like some kind of bug, but huge, larger than any of my Shield Beetles. The thing was all spines and sharp points, a thing designed to look intimidating. It was also very obviously dying, as beams of green energy tore into it, the flesh healing, but just a little too slow as the shots impacted its form, a derelict in all but name, before finally it was washed away by the light of my fleet.

"My fleet was a match for this Drak, and I say we could have taken more," I said, not bragging, but merely stating fact, and I watched in very dark satisfaction as a cornucopia of emotions crossed the Quarg Speaker's face. Disbelief, fear, anger, sadness, and finally, at last, it settled on resignation.

"You, why would you do this?" he asked at last.

"Because he demanded my obedience, and I refused. We were running from the Sestor, I'd wanted to explore everything we could before coming back here. The Mereti were relentless though, and even once they and the Sestor started fighting, some still followed us, so I had my AI, STAR, plot us a course to an unconnected system, figuring the two Automata races lacked jump drive," I explained, and the scene played out as I said, the recording showing my forty-five ship fleet leaping out to the unknown.

"We found a system, with a paradise world. Nothing sentient yet, but we stopped to rest for a moment, then we heard something in our heads," I said, and the Speaker seemed to recoil at that, staring at Bandit.

"You, you went to sacred Avalon? You set foot on a forbidden world? And you heard the Words?" he demanded, and I saw Bandit, strong, powerful, willful Bandit, turn from him like some frightened school girl.

"No, we didn't. I wanted to, but we never had time. The Drak...I'll call it ship, but I'm fairly certain it was just a Drak itself, appeared, and did the telepathic comm stuff. It hurt, made me feel like I'd taken some hard drugs, but we endured. It demanded we surrender to it. I refused, and we fought. We won," I told him. That was the jist of events at least. In specific, I'd asked a question or two, and been told off for my trouble, the Drak saying I was, 'beneath contempt for my intrusion into the garden'.

I had tried to explain, but before I got too far, the thing fired. It was a single shot, but it packed more power than anything I had. Luckily, it was slow, and while it had been aimed well, the thing was still almost a light minute away, so my ships were able to dodge. When I demanded it stop firing, it opened up with some weird turrets, and so I ordered everyone to fire back. I'd expected to die, honestly. The thing was putting out more energy than my whole fleet, but it was slow, ponderous, and it adapted poorly to being attacked from all sides. With STAR coordinating us, we took the thing down in a running fight through the system that lasted an hour.

"You, !?, did this truly happen the way the human describes it?" he asked, saying what I figured was her real name, and Bandit, after a moment, nodded.

"You have committed a sin, a vile thing, and I should have you executed, young one. This human knows nothing of the Drak, but you, you are of the Quarg, and are subject to our laws," he tried to say more, but I rolled my chair into his way, and more importantly, I had a blaster, a small one, aimed right between his eyes.

"I don't care what the hell kind of space religion you guys have, but Bandit has been with me for months, and I've come to like her. Touch her, and I'll make sure you die," I said, and the Speaker seemed to find the very idea contemptuous.

"You would die after. The Wardragons of this Ring number in the tens of thousands, with others that could be built quickly. Even one would give you pause," he told me, and I nodded at the assessment.

"True, very true, but I saw those Automata ships pursue my fleet for several jumps. What if I was to send them out, and guide them here. How many would it take to break your lines?" I asked, the Speaker pausing as he considered this.

"You would truly bring death to us and the Korath-Za, and likely the galaxy when they steal our jump drives? Does your madness know no end human?" he said at last, and I just smiled at him.

"I'm a Sage, dear Speaker, and I fought a Drak. I don't think I have the typical responses to danger as others," I told him plainly, and he just stared at me, before sighing.

"This information, it cannot leave this chamber. I would ask that you delete those logs from your records, and tell the few crewmen you have to keep their memories to themselves. If that is done, I shall allow you to leave here. I will not speak of this to any of the Rings or my people, but the Eighth Ring is now forbidden to you, child," he said, directing the last at Bandit, who nodded gravely at him.

"I've said my piece then. I wanted to know how much you knew, and now I know. You and your gods can go suck space. I may not have the power now, but when I do gain it, I'm coming back, and ending these mechanical monsters once and for all," I said, and then leapt down from the chair. Bandit, after a look back towards the Speaker, followed me. Together, we exited the office, and then started towards the port, silence our only companion for a time.

"That, that was not a bluff, was it?" she asked me after a while, and I shook my head.

"I don't like it when people make my friends feel like they did something wrong because they did something I asked. I'm the Captain, the Commodore. Whatever you do under my orders is my responsibility, not yours. Besides, that Drak, whatever you or your people think of them, attacked us first. We defended ourselves," I told her, and she nodded, her hand slowly going over to the scar on her side, rubbing at it a bit.

"It, it is not the first time I've been hurt because of the ways of our people. The Drak, they bid us to keep an eye on the Hai's northern cousins. That is why the Fourth Ring, my Ring, was made. When I was patrolling their space once, a few months before you found me, I was ambushed, my ship destroyed. If the Drak would just deal with them, or the Speaker try to find some solution to the Unfettered, I would still be whole," she said, and I stayed silent, never having heard why she was injured before, and daring not to speak.

"My wound could be repaired, of course. The Ring has wonders on it, things you, as a visitor are not allowed to see. But I didn't want wonders, I wanted freedom. If I went back, I would be repaired, and then set to guard again, because that is what we must do, it is what the Drak asked of us. If they're gods though, why do we suffer for them?" she asked the last of no one in particular, and I sighed at the question, unable to think of a good response.

"I was ordered to meditate on that, and told to stay in Hai space until I found my answer, my wound a reminder of what the Drak would gift me with, should I serve them well. I am more convinced now, however, that such gifts come at too high a price. You have shown me things that I never would have seen. Not all of them are pleasant, I'll admit, but still, they are new, and I wish to discover more," she said, turning to face me after looking out a window for a long moment.

"Then let's find something else new. STAR says he scanned a hell of a power source out in the Mereti space, in a disconnected system. We can rush past the mechs, and investigate it, then we'll see what the future holds for us," I told her, and Bandit smiled at me, as we made our way out of the transport, and to our ships at dock.


	18. What does the mean for You and I?

"Meerti ships closing," said STAR's voice, but I ignored him, watching the gauges of my ships' fuel tanks slowly creep higher. I'd been discovering, over the course of my explorations of Korath space, that jump drives were power hogs, and I'd been letting the ramscoops keep us topped off, just in case. In most systems, that meant fighting off some small patrols, but here, deep in the space controlled by the Mereti, it meant a lot more, and while I wasn't going to risk too much, I wanted to have as much leeway as I could on jumping to the new system.

"They will be in range in four seconds," he warned, and I nodded.

"Alright, engage jump, let's find out what's in the Sayaiban system," I said, wondering why the thing, a system disconnected via hyperspace, was marked in the Korath-Za's star charts. I figured it might be some kind of sacred star or something, but it didn't feel that way. No, something about it felt important, and with a power reading strong enough to detect from this far away, my curiosity was peaked.

"Jumping now," he advised, and blue fire consumed everything around me, the feeling of weightlessness lasting for a moment, before I collapsed back in on myself. My first warning that something was wrong were the sirens, as alarms and such blared out at me that I'd done something probably more than a little stupid. About me, I could see a star system, but an odd one. It was as if there was a fog over the whole thing, and some of the planets, and even the local primary appeared to have been consumed by some great giant.

"STAR, plot us a course out of here!" I ordered instantly, and got a confirming beep from him, watching as the displays began to show the calculations needed for the jump. Even as they worked though, I could see the shields of my fleet being slowly eaten away at, even if the only sign of an attack was the occasional spark. Then whatever was doing it started to get through to the hull itself, with some sections of my personal ship suddenly exposed to vacuum, only to seal back up a moment later.

"Calculations com-erk-calcu-dweep-ERROR-ERROR!" the last two words made my heart drop, thinking something had happened to STAR, only to see something far worse on the sensors. Five Drak, Archons my scanner helpfully supplied, moving into position to blow us away.

"All ships, brace for combat!" I commanded, but I knew from the shouts on the comms they were having issues with their systems as well. The androids were controlled by STAR, or at least, a version of him installed on each ship. With whatever was happening, the droids were no help at all, and a single person simply couldn't fly a Shield Beetle, let alone fight in one.

"No, I will not let them ruin this! I was happy!" I heard Bandit shout, and then her ship, somehow, started forward, moving at a speed I would have deemed impossible, if I didn't see the shields drop, and the hull start to dissolve as she charged towards the Drak. I wanted to say something, wanted to shout out, but even as she accelerated, everything else seemed to slow. The shield drain, the hull damage, the voices of everyone in the fleet. Only the Drak moved normally, and they swept towards her like a tide.

"Why did you come here?" said a voice, and I recognized instantly that it was the Drak using their telepathy again. Unlike before though, this voice felt...motherly. It didn't sound feminine, but then, it was in my head. The tone of the question though, it was one of concern, as the ships came up to Bandit, and then shone blue lights at her, ones that seemed to halt her advance, and also slowly begin to repair her ship as they brought her back into formation with the rest of us.

"I'm a Sage, one of my line explores the boundaries of knowledge, and to do that means to go to places no one else has ever been before," I answer, the words being drawn from me even without me willing them spoken.

"Hmm, you have found a space none save the Drak have been in in some millennia, but that fact is not without reasons," said the voice, and I can 'see' outside my ship for a moment. Out there, amid the system, I can see the cloud of fog was in fact, a reality, and not some sensor glitch. It was something like the liquid metal in the control core that STAR was using to maintain my ship, and the rest of the fleet. The biggest difference was that this metal didn't repair things, it tore them apart, consuming them until they became part of the fog.

"A grey goo scenario. What happened?" I ask, remembering an old story of what might happen should nanotech run amok. Of course, that had proven impossible outside of sims. Even nanites needed a communal intelligence to continue functioning, a control box, and once they spread out this far, that simply did work as well with speed of light delay. It literally would have driven an artificial mind mad trying to organize all these various bits in real time, and yet, here before me was the proof that someone had done it.

"This is one outcome of the war between the Sestor and the Mereti, to be consumed by each other, and fight over the meager scraps of matter that remain," the voice explains, and suddenly my mind is filled with images of the two ship types I'd seen becoming liquid, slamming into each other, and then turning into the fog that is now tearing apart this system.

"Why are they still here?" I ask at last as the vision ends.

"Why would they not be? They are made to be effective war machines, and while the war has gotten smaller in scale, they still fulfill that function beautifully," I hear the voice say, but I shake my head at that.

"But you have the power, you could end this, destroy them and then the rest of them, free the Korath from what has happened to them," I respond, imagining as best I can, all those worlds we'd seen in the Automata space thriving again, with real civilizations on them once more, rather than just being the hulks of formerly living worlds, which the two non-organic races flew by without a single glance.

"And by what right would we do this? Kill beings of their unique nature?" it asked, and suddenly I was furious.

"If that's your stance, then what right do you have to limit the Korath?! I saw the Korath-Ah stations. They're the same sort of thing as the Automata stations here. You had to have given them those, and limited their range, restricting what the Korath-Ah could do with them," I retorted with a harsh tone in my voice.

"We did, I will not deny it, but we did so because they are dying. That was not the aim of our goals, and knowing they would perish, we keep these Korath Automata races here, in their ultimate form, possibly to be the final marker of the Korath's passing," it said simply, and I felt another flare of anger, but then let it slide away. I needed to be calm, to make my case, not lose my temper when facing five Drak ships which could wipe my force off the galactic map.

"So, you destroyed them, sealed their species away, and now give a few of them toys with which to hurt others, and leave the very things you sealed them up for making around, because you feel they might well be the last things that they're leave behind? That makes no sense," I say at last, and the voice is silent for what feels like hours as it considers my words, or possibly considers how to respond to them.

"You perspective is limited, Child of Earth. I cannot impress upon you how these events play out, but know that my will, the will that guides the Drak, is far greater than any other. See me, and know what I am," it said, and then I saw something. It wasn't through the mental connection either, it was just, there, my sensors picking it up for the first time. Or rather, they were only now truly able to understand it.

The sensors of the Shield Beetle, and indeed any ship I had seen, even the Quarg stuff, were designed to quickly pinpoint planetary mass and stellar energy output, to identify such things that might be obstacles to spaceflight. This meant that they were designed with upper ranges in mind for the scale of such things, ranges that the object I was now seeing passed by entire orders of magnitude, filling the screens, and then some, as it blocked out the stars on one side of the system.

I'd heard once about an old Earth idea for a shell built around a star, a Dyson Sphere I'd heard it called. The idea was to literally surround a star with a shell on which many, many people could live on, absorbing the entire output of the star as power for the shell itself. What I saw now was probably something like that, but every reading said different. Inside that shell was something as powerful as a million stars, as powerful as the black hole at the center of the galaxy, and worse, the thing appeared to be organic in nature. A single organism, larger than worlds or stars.

"Thus we are known. We are of the same make as the Beast, or Nemesis. What you would call Gods are but the merest of our children," the voice spoke, as the thing in front of me faded away, my sensors no longer able to see it as it ceased to allow them to do so. The stars, however, remained blacked out, telling me that it was still there, still waiting.

"You would question us, in a way few have done in many years. We find great courage in that, and grant you a gift. A mission. Far to the north of here, beyond even the Unfettered, lays another race. The Wanders are the healers of broken worlds, and they are in need of aid. Go forth to them, and grant that aid, and they shall in turn aid you. Now begone, much work remains this cycle," it said the last dismissively, and I was about to protest when purple light covered everything I saw, consuming my ships, and teleporting us away. When I returned to myself, we were in Hai space, over Hai Home itself.

"STAR! Status report!" I shouted, and the AI turned to me, his android body twisting in an odd way, as it seemed to consider my tone.

"We are descending into the atmosphere now, Commodore. The local yard has already been contacted, and should have the hulls ready for inspection when we land," he said simply, and I looked around, seeing displays of my ships as they flew into the sky, red starting to cover the bottom of their shields as the air burned at their touch.

"What about Sayaiban? What about the Drak?" I demanded.

"Hmm? What is Sayaiban? I have no record of that word in my systems. As for the Drak, after killing one, I assume they're steering clear of us," said STAR in an even tone, and I was about to protest, when my thoughts skipped a beat, and I suddenly had a headache, a sharp pain behind my eye scattering my mind for a moment.

"But, but, the...I can't remember," I said at last, rubbing at the spot where the pain was worst, only for it to fade an instant later.

"Hmm, perhaps we should ask the Hai for a medical exam when we land, Sage," suggested the AI, and I nodded.

"Yeah, maybe, but after that, I want to take our fleet north. Something tells me the Unfettered are hiding something, and I want to know what," I respond, watching the world below grow ever closer, my mind shifting over to plans to see what might lay beyond the Unfettered's borders, perhaps there might be something north of even them, and that would be something worth seeing.


	19. Unfettered

One Hundred and Eight was a sacred number amongst some old Earth cultures. Of course, I had no idea which ones, and really didn't know why, but I figured it was an auspicious sign that my fleet numbered just that many as we entered the Wah Ki system, Cloudfire ahead waiting for us. The fleet, all Shield Beetles equipped with Korath Cores, human weapons, and Hai everything else, flew like a steel sky over the Hai world, landing lightly, and getting the fuel we needed to continue our quest.

"Alright, once we're topped off, we're heading into Unfettered space. All Captains and Wing Commanders, report," I said into my comm. The One Oh Eight was divided into three wings, with Monkey Joe and Bandit in charge of the other two. Each of us would operate in tandem, but also with a degree of independence that would allow for us to strike multiple targets at once. According to STAR, this was the most efficient use of our firepower, as so far, only the Drak had had enough shields to last even a second against the firepower of thirty-six fully equipped Shield Beetles.

"Bandit here, Day Wing reports ready and able," sounded off Bandit after a moment.

"Monkey Joe reporting, Night Wing is hot and up for a fight," came the chittering sound of the Hai woman.

"Twilight Wing reports as ready," said STAR's android body next to me, and I nodded, watching my tac screen as the various holos of my ships all went green on it, indicating their tanks were full, and their systems passed inspection.

"Alright then, we're ready to go. Normally, this would be the point where I, as the Commodore of a civilian formation, ordered you to hold fire until fired upon, but seeing as we're not a good deal bigger than any currently flying fleet, I'll instead issue this directive. If the Unfettered so much as look at you funny, I want you to turn them into expanding clouds of gas. Clear?" I said, and got several acknowledgements, just before the entire fleet, in three delta formations, shot off into the sky.

"STAR, plot jump course to the Unfettered system nearby," I ordered, watching on my screens as the local star chart came up, the hyperspace lane to the unknown system highlighting. STAR waited, coordinating the fleet's movement so that we all jumped as one, blue fire consuming each of us, and then the weightless feeling coming on, before everything came crashing back down.

"We are now in Unfettered Space, scans indicate a large force of enemy ships are incoming," says the AI, bringing them up on my screens. The force is indeed larger than any the normal Hai had used to my knowledge, consisting of almost a dozen Shield Beetles.

"Okay, contact them, let's see if we can talk our way out of this," I command, waiting as the connection is established.

"This is Admiral Voth, you are to power down and surrender," came the quick reply, as the ships closed in.

"This is Commodore Sage, a human, and currently the leader of this fleet. I have no reason to fight you, but I'm certainly not surrendering either. I merely wish to pass through you space while exploring," I tell him, and a chittering laugh comes from Voth.

"Then you will die, human, and we will claim your fleet as derelicts instead," he says quickly closing the connection.

"Well, at least he's honest. All ships, fall into formation. No prisoners," I order, and watch as the fleet dances, twirling and twisting on itself. The pilots are doing most of that, with STAR giving them the info that allows them to slide into formation so easily. On the other side, the fifteen ship fleet flies onward, either unimpressed, or just trying to act like it as they come towards us, the heat in their systems building as they accelerate and charge weapons. When we're just at the edge of our range, streams of green light fire from us, answered by shots of blue ions from the large cannons aboard our foes.

STAR coordinates us, so that within the first pass, fully half the enemies are gone, and I marvel at the whole dance. STAR, an AI, is quite good at planning, but AIs had proven to be less so at actual combat. In the displays I see the numbers, calculations going faster and faster as he plans out the battle a million ways, but it takes my hands on the controls to implement. AI's like him are simply not built for combat, as the best odds of surviving a battle is to not fight at all, which is why almost nobody uses ships without organic pilots.

"More ships, incoming from out of system," STAR informs me, showing me the hyperspace lanes that are currently building in power. Sadly, the lanes are the ones not pointed back towards Cloudfire, which means they'll be enemies rather than allies.

"Okay then, I think we're done here anyway. All ships, prepare for jump. I want to see the rest of this space before we head back," I order, and then wait as the jump drive is calibrated. Behind us, Admiral Voth's remaining ships turn, their guns already charging for another volley. It spoke well of their training, considering their leader was an expanding cloud of formally meat vapor. Not that we gave them a chance, once the coordinates were entered, we jumped, entering another system full of ships like our own, crewed by beings that were quite a bit different.

"Commodore, we are receiving another transmission," STAR informed me the world resolved, and I got another look at a Hai as it popped up on my comm screen.

"Human scum, Admiral Voth died, but not in vain. The entire fleet of the Unfettered faces you now, and yo-," that was as far as he got before I muted him, and looked at my TAC screen. The information we were detecting was...problematic, even for a fleet of our size. More than three hundred vessels, of varying sizes, with fifty plus Shield Beetles, all in combat formation. It would be a hard fought battle, and I was about to give orders to simply jump out when I noticed one of the larger ships break off from the rest.

"And where are you going?" I asked, zooming my display over to it. I then got to watch as the ship was slowly consumed by blue fire, before it vanished in a flash of light.

"What in the? STAR, that ship just jumped!" I said, and quickly saw I had two more comms waiting for me. A gesture later, Bandit and Joe were floating around me.

"That's impossible, the Unfettered simply do not have jump drives," said Bandit, and I nodded at that.

"Yeah, that's two races that shouldn't, but do. Think they're being supplied by the same person?" I asked.

"You don't understand, Commodore. If they had jump drives on their capitals, they'd already be sending them behind our lines. This makes no sense," retorted Joe, and I could think of no response, instead watching as the band of ships ahead of us began to move into combat positions.

"STAR, can you track where that ship went?" I asked, and the AI seemed to pause for a moment, before the android beside me nodded.

"I believe so, Sage. Jump vectors do leave a certain energy signature. I'm already calculating a course," he told me.

"Alright then. All captains, hear this. We're going to be following that enemy ship that jumped, rather than engaging in pointless fights with the peanut gallery, as I'm quite sure it has a far more interesting story to tell," I ordered, and the ships ahead of us, as I'd been using an open channel, moved even faster, as if trying to catch us before we could depart. Not that they had a chance, as the jump drives flared to life, and just as the first shots were fired, we vanished, moving off into the great unknown.


	20. Meeting New People

We arrived in the unknown system either moments or a day later, depending on your perspective of such things. The enemy combatant arrived only a few seconds ahead of us, however, and got a hell of a surprise, their ship quickly pivoting towards us. Ion cannons opened up, but with only four of those, compared to all the heavy combat lasers in our force, the Unfettered ship was easily disabled, and we moved in. Docking with the ship was even easier than usual, and I pulse scanned it to see what I could find.

"Well, nothing unusual about this one. Expect for the jump drive I mean," I said, more to myself than anyone else. Aboard the enemy vessel were the typical complement of Hai, a lot of which were now gathered around the hatch, waiting for me to insert troops. I chose the better part of valor, however, and quickly had STAR jump their drive into our hold, and then pulled away, blasting as we went. The shots from my guns found no resistance in the hull, and the ship was soon just a memory.

"STAR, did their logs give any indication of why that ship was here, or more importantly, where they got the jump drive from?" I asked, and the AI seemed to freeze in mid motion as he considered the question, his android body just standing there for a long moment, before he finally looked at me and shook his head.

"Negative, Commodore. All information was either personal, or dry for our purposes, I-," he cut off as an alarm blared, and suddenly the tactical screen lit up. The system we were in had hyperspace lanes in it, which led to other, unknown systems. More importantly though, the reason I was being informed of that fact was that some of the lanes were becoming energized, meaning we were about to get visitors.

"Day Wing, Night Wing, take point, Twilight Wing, form up on me. These may be hostiles, but I don't want to jump the gun, so let them come nice and easy," I ordered, and we waited, watching as the energy numbers began to climb higher and higher. Finally, the lanes spit out the ships that were traveling in them, odd alien ships of designs I had never seen before. Things with grace reminiscent of the Quarg, but longer, and with far less power. Of course, that didn't help me much in determining their hostility factor. No, what helped that was when the shapes became hotter, shields and weapons flaring to life.

"Hold fire until fired upon, I repeat hold-," I cut off as the sensors detected something to the rear, a large output of energy where blank space had been before. It didn't take much to figure it was incoming jump drives, and coming in at a close vector. The unknown ships were still almost a light hour out, so more than a few minutes away, but these were being dumped only a few light seconds from our position, and as the jump glow resolved itself into ships, specifically three more Shield Beetles with Unfettered markings.

"All ships, turn about. Those newcomers might be hot, but we know these guys are. Aim for disable only, I want to steal a few more jump drives!" even as I gave the command, I felt the spin as the gravity shifted, our ship coming about and aiming our guns at the Unfettered. It took less than a second for the new ships to find themselves disabled, and my ship, along with two others in my wing, swept forward to grab the drives, flying off just as the rest of the fleet erased the ships from space, and we all turned back to the newcomers.

"Commodore, the unknown ships have stopped. It would seem they do not know what to make of us, so I surmise they do not like the Unfettered anymore than we do," said STAR, and I looked at the tactical screen. The new force numbered in at almost fifty ships, all of varying sizes, but similar designs. So it was a united force, probably from the local government.

"STAR, open a channel with them," I commanded, and soon found a comm screen projected in front of me.

"This is Commodore Sage, independent explorer and human. My fleet comes in the spirit of peaceful exploration. We would be willing to trade information or goods if you desire. If not, we will leave," I said, and waited. On the other end, they were probably discussing what to do. Mind, I also knew if they had no translator with Galactic Standard, my native tongue, than they were probably wondering what in the heavens I'd said. Either way, their response was rather short.

"I'm getting a data stream now, Sage. It appears to be a star chart of the local hyperspace lanes. Specifically, it's one with a large system circled. I believe they want us to go there," offered the AI.

"Well then, let's not disappoint. All ships, we've got a new destination. As we're guests in this space, and no one from here's shot at us yet, I think it best we return that courtesy. That means no firing unless I give the order," I told them, and got back some acknowledgements, before we vanished again, moving towards the system marked for us, where hopefully we'd get some new information.


	21. Communication Error

We had to stop the fleet, briefly, to refuel, using one of the stars along the way to fill our tanks, but after a few days of travel, we arrived. What we arrived at was a question, however, as the world was surrounded by ships of the same type as we'd seen, including everything from small scouts, to large warships, to massive transports. When we entered the system, we tried sending out hails, but the most we got back was a small diagram of the planet, with a place marked on it that had to be a port of some kind.

"All Wings, remain in orbit. I'm going to land now, and I want to try and appear peaceful, but if I have to bug out, you folks are my lifeline," I ordered.

"Confirmed Commodore, Bandit and I will keep everything together," said Joe, and I was grateful for the Hai woman as we began our descent. It was, if anything, the unknown ships moved out of the way, allowing me priority travel down to the surface, where I found a very unique port waiting for me. Rather than massive hangers, or huge stones, this port was kind of an outcropping on a cliff, and it took me only a few moments to see why as I made my way down, and finally looked at the things flying around.

"STAR, confirm for me. Those fliers, are they the ones loading and unloading the transports?" I asked, and the AI in an android body beside me nodded, holographic screens popping up all around me to show me the various avians moving around.

"Confirmed, they appear to be speaking as well, but the language is impossible to translate," he told me, letting me hear the speech a few times, which were odd gargles and the like. Probably a result of their beaks. With no lips, most of their sounds came from the throat directly, rather than being shaped by the lips.

"Atmosphere checks out, I'm going outside to see if they'll talk to me long enough to give you some kind of baseline," I told the AI, who had more than a dozen android bodies waiting for me by the time I got to the offloading ramp, all of which fanned out like some kind of silver skinned honor guard as I walked onto the stone. Around me, the wildly flying avians seemed almost oblivious for several moments, until a small contingent, about eight strong, landed. Their bodies, unlike their fellows, were covered not just with feathers, but with some kind of dye as well, probably signifying rank.

"Greetings, I am Sage, Commodore and leader of the fleet overhead," I said, and the avians looked at one another, squawking a few times, before one came forward. It made noises at me, that I had to assume were a greeting in a similar vain, then flared its wings out, allowing me to notice that it had arms on its front, with the wings growing out of the side, giving it a rather odd appearance. I made a motion I hoped showed I didn't understand what it was saying, and I saw a very human-like frustration cross its eyes, before it made another noise, this one more like a chittering sound.

"Commodore, I understood that," said a voice in my ear, Joe's, and I heard a shuffling of feet and hands as she did something in her cabin, a muffled voice coming through as she discussed something with STAR.

"Alright, let me try something, STAR, move one of the androids forward, and relay this message," she said, and one of my honor guard took a step, and then made a chittering sound almost exactly like hers. The avian looked at it, then at me, and then made more chittering sounds. For several minutes, the two conversed, before, in a rather defeated looking gesture, the avian took off again, their companions joining them.

"Well Joe?" I asked, looking after the welcoming party.

"I'm afraid the news isn't good, Sage. I could only understand about a tenth of what they were saying. It was Old Chitter, the Holy Tongue, and unfortunately, I don't know enough to hold a conversation. All I could do is tell them we weren't here to fight, something I think they already realized, considering they let us land," she admitted, and I stroked my chin in thought for a moment.

"What do you mean by, Holy Tongue?" I asked at last, as I boarded my ship, making my way back to the bridge.

"Old Chitter is the speech of priests and holy people, from which modern Chit arose. Most of our modern words have some equivalents, but not enough it appears," she told me, and I considered that for a moment.

"You mean your language has changed enough to be unrecognizable?" I asked, and before she could respond, one of STAR's other androids turned from their task and made several grunting noises at me.

"Huh?" was all I could think of to respond, and the droid seemed to laugh at me.

"Sorry, I said, 'Pot, meet kettle', in English, the language GalStandard evolved from," he informed me, and once again I had to pause to think on that, before barking out a laugh.

"So it is. Alright, it's not your fault Joe. Where would we find someone who speaks Old Chitter?" I asked as I returned to my bridge, and made ready to take off.

"Hai Home would be the only place I can think of. An old historian or maybe we'll get lucky and find a priest who wants to travel the stars?" she offered, and I chuckled at that, lifting off from the planet, and quickly rising to the fleet. Their fuel tanks were topped off by the local primary, and my own were thanks to the atmosphere dive, so we could easily reach the system at the edge of this species' space. Of course, we'd need to stop there, unless we wanted to land on an Unfettered world…


	22. Hai History

Landing on the Unfettered world was easy. The port authority was just as bribable as any other, and my fleet was given a berth, within moments after the money was given. I even paid extra so I could talk to one of their leaders, with Monkey Joe complaining even as we landed about helping the enemy, even as I told her plainly, we needed the fuel, and I was curious. The Hai, even Joe herself, tended to be closed lipped about the Unfettered, and I wanted to know just what was going on.

"Hmm, the Commander of the Wormhole Patrol, her Quarg master, and their human lapdog. Quite the sight," said the old looking Hai who met us on the pad. His fur was missing tufts all over, and one of his eyes appeared to be blind, as it was mostly white, with a dull grey center. Still, he wore a uniform like someone important, and the insults he threw around were quite weighty. That told me he was in charge(or so he thought), and that's really all I wanted.

"And that would make you the one who took over for Voth after we made him into vapor," I told him smugly, and the Hai's fur ruffled up like he was trying to appear larger than he was.

"Voth was my clutch brother, of the same mother, human. He died bravely in defense of we, the True Hai!" the last was almost a declaration, but I ignored it as just more posturing, and moved on.

"Alright, well, your brother died at our hands, remember that, because I'm not going to be too teary eyed to start a little family reunion in whatever afterlife you believe in," I retorted, and he seemed to take that in a moment, before letting out a chittering laugh.

"A strong answer human. Well, you wanted to see the leader of the Hai on this world, and that is me. Did you come merely to trade barbs, or to do business of some sort?" he asked, and I nodded. Placing both fingers in my mouth, I whistled, and four androids soon came out of my ship, each pushing a pallet mover on which sat one of the jump drives we'd 'acquired' while in the alien space to the north.

"I noticed that you have jump drives, but obviously not a lot. Now, my own species doesn't have many either, but hauling these all the way to human space sounds like a pain, so I figured I'd give you first bid on them," I told him, and he licked at his teeth while turning from the goods, to me, and back again. While he was looking away, Joe leaned forward and whispered.

"You would give them the means to destroy yet more lives?" she asked in a very forceful tone despite the whispering.

"If worst comes to worst, we'll destroy their fleets on our way out," I said back, before facing the Hai in front of me.

"I will offer five million credits a drive, that's more than twice what human space would give you," he said simply.

"A generous offer, or at least, it would be if I hadn't paid almost five million just to land," I commented, and he seemed taken aback.

"Of course, for doing us this service, the fee you paid to dock will be returned, and you will be allowed future dockings for free, as well as free passage through our space," he said, and I got the impression that he wouldn't have offered those if I hadn't asked.

"A generous sum, and a good port of call. Still, why would Hai, so far north, have human credits in the first place? Our currency should not be good here, should it?" I asked, and the Hai made a motion with his hand that I could tell was supposed to be dismissive.

"Your kind ever ventures into places where you are told not to go, as such, we get visitors here frequently. We have gained much wealth, both in trade goods and simple credits," he told me.

"Ah, so you've been acquiring your drives from humans then?" I inquired, and this time he froze, as if considering what he'd just said.

"I am not at liberty to say. My offer stands, however," he said, and that seemed to be the end of his side of the conversation.

"Alright, you don't want to talk about that. How's about another topic then. I saw you fighting the avian species to the north. I'll trade you these, if you'll tell me what's going on there," I countered, and he considered this for a long moment, finally turning and pointing an accusing claw at me.

"You ask a hard question, as it involves much of our history. To put it bluntly, those in the north are scavengers. Those worlds once belonged to the Hai, and were stolen from us. Now we have the means to take them back, and we will not be denied our birthright," the last was said in the same tone as 'True Hai' from his earlier speech, but with a note of anger in it where the other had been triumphant.

"You're saying those avians kicked you off your worlds?" I asked, and that got a rather odd sounding grunt from him, followed by another round of chittering laughter.

"You know nothing of our history, do you human? Have you never asked this 'guard' of our people's glorious past?" he said, gesturing towards Joe with a hand.

"If you mean the lies you tell your children, Unfettered One, then no, I have not. Nor has he asked of our people's history, which is simply one of peace and isolation," she tells him, venom in her voice easy to hear, even through the clacking of her teeth in what I can only guess is either a death threat, or possibly a sign that she's cold.

"Well then, I shall tell him the true history in brief. Long ago, we Hai were as you humans are now. Young, impulsive, and most of all, expanding. Our ships were great, and the enemies we found amongst the heavens easily swept aside, and made either servant or dead, depending on how we were met," as he spoke, he began to gesture around, like a teacher giving a lecture, indicating he'd told this story many times before. Monkey Joe seemed ready to rip his throat out at some points, but I held up my arm to keep her back.

"Then we went too far. I do not know how, but something changed, and our borders were assaulted by the Drak, their ships numbering enough to blacken the skies of every world we held," with this, his arms went up, as if to indicate the sky above being so filled.

"Didn't you fight back?" I asked, and got another chittering laugh in answer.

"Foolishness of the young. My people were strong, but the Drak ships were by far our betters. Worse, they did not attack as we would. They fired no shots, they laid waste none of our cities. No, they attacked our minds instead, altering us, so that we would become more docile, more compliant with what they desired. Then they shuffled us here, into this out of the way corner of the galaxy, and sealed the lanes, so that we were trapped here," he explained, and I nodded, remembering the feeling of the Drak's voice in my head. Oddly, it felt like I should remember something else, but that thought vanished as the story continued.

"When all was said and done, we were made but pets of the Drak, left to exist in our cage. A millennium ago, however, our people were attacked. Peaceful we had been, and our attackers were ruthless, pushing forward as hard as they could. When they reached our core worlds, we found in us the courage to fight again, and in so doing, we unlocked that part of ourselves that spoke of our true history. When the threat had been beaten back, we tried to instill in our brothers and sisters the truth, but they rejected it, and banished us to these inhospitable worlds that had been left fallow," he said the last while staring daggers at Joe, but I ignored that.

"So you're trapped here, until the wormhole opened. But why? What do the Drak gain out of leaving you here?" I asked, and this seemed to bring the Hai before me up short.

"Honestly? I do not know. The Drak are powerful, but their motives are inscrutable. I would guess they are keeping us alive as something like a project. After all, we are not the first to have been so culled, nor are we the last. Perhaps they simply desire to find something in the younger races, and are keeping their failures around as lessons for their new projects," he said this was a sly looking grin at me, and I knew he was talking about humans.

"I think I've heard enough then. Take the drives, and transfer the credits to my accounts here. I have business elsewhere," I told him, and then walked away, back to my ship. Moments later, we were once more in space, our tanks full, and waiting for jump calculations to finish.

"Joe, you said your history is different than his. What does yours say?" I asked as we waited.

"His story has a ring of truth. The Hai have ever been isolated, but we've only been sailing the stars for a few thousand years longer than you humans, not a million as his people claim. We never had a great empire, only these few worlds. The invasion is true, however, a lane was unexpectedly opened with the Korath Automata's territory," she explained.

"As he said, we were peaceful then, and only a few of us fought them. Later, the Quarg aided us, using technology given to them by the Drak to collapse the route from our territory to the Korath Automata. The Unfettered are descended from those who fought at that time, but refused to simply let the war go when it was over," she said, but her voice seemed to waver, and I closed the channel out of respect for her, before opening another.

"Bandit, I know you were listening. You said before your Ring is here to watch the Hai Unfettered. Does that mean their story is true?" I asked, and her face in the display seemed to collapse into itself, as if she were attempting to hide from me. She rose up tall and proud after a moment though.

"I cannot say at the beginning, my personal experience only stretched back a hundred thousand years. Still, his story sounds plausible. The Ring has existed for many more millennia than the invasion a few hundred years ago," she said simply, and my own mind refused to parse the first part of that statement for a moment.

"You're more than a hundred thousand years old?" I asked at last, and the very humanlike face smiled at me.

"Heh, yes, quite young for a Quarg, I know," she said, and from that twinkle in her eye, I knew she understood the actual source of my question.

"You don't look a day over fifty to me, Bandit. Now, let's head to Hai Home. We need to find a priest or what not, and while there, I want to date one of their ports. If it's older than a few thousand years, we'd have an easy answer to this question," I said, as we finally jumped out, just missing the blue flash as another ship entered the system.


	23. The Second One Falls

We jumped back into Unfettered space, at my side a Hai of...interesting looks. She'd been called an ambassador by the Hai governor, but her demeanor, her way of moving spoke of a holy person. Sayari wore nothing, not uncommon for Hai given their fur, but her fur itself was the interesting thing. Each strand appeared tied in such a way to be obviously meaningful, but without drawing attention to it till you got closer. She was a true believer in whatever religion the Hai had.

"Captain, we are entering the Ehma Ti system now," STAR informed me as the blue fire faded from my vision.

"Alright, set course for Firelode, we'll dock there to refill our tanks then...STAR, what's going on?" I asked, looking towards the tactical screen to find the system was quiet. Not empty, as there were many more ships here than there should have been, but they all hung close to the planet. A quick count on the screen said the fleet there was more than twice as large as my own, ton for ton, though it had fewer capital ships, instead featuring a mixture of large and smaller craft, all at a dead stop.

"Unknown Commodore. The Unfettered vessels are powered, ready for combat, but they're not moving. I have...receiving a transmission," the android speaking waved a hand in the air, creating another floating window, and then passing it towards me. Inside, static played at first, as the message was decoded and translated, eventually showing an image, one of a bridge much like my own, with a chair floating in it. Except rather than a single person sitting in a large chair with an android, it was a human, surrounded by the crew such a vessel normally required.

"Claire...so, the old men find me even here. That is most distressing," I tell the woman in my view, wondering just what is going on here.

"Mr. Sage, Commodore I suppose is what you choose to be called now. I must admit, I expected Bernard to deal with you. His pirate allies seemed to believe that they would easily be able to destroy your fleet, and yet, he is dead, and those we paid so generously have faded into the background," I actually smiled at the memory of that bastard dying to my guns, and remembering his expression as the hull of his ship buckled.

"He overestimated himself, and fell to me. Will you do the same?" I asked, hoping to not have to kill her. I was not one of those who believed women deserved the benefit of the doubt, I knew Claire, like the rest, had done some awful, awful things, but right now, I was busy, and a holy person on my bridge tended to mean moral objections to even justified killings.

"Heh, you ask that, even seeing the fleet at my command? No, I do not underestimate you, Sage. I know every vessel in your fleet, I have studied your AI and how he operates. This battle has already been planned down to the last shot fired, and it ends with your death, and the death of those in your crew. Unless, of course, you agree to a compromise," she said the last while leaning back in her chair, looking very confident in her bargaining position. Considering the sims I could see STAR running out of the corner of my eye, the confidence was not without merit.

"You have my ear. Talk, and I promise to consider it," I said honestly.

"You will jump into the space currently claimed by the avian species, the Wanderers as I'm told they're called. Once there, you will land, and we will give you hyperdrives for your ships, while claiming all your jump drives. Once the exchange is made, the Unfettered shall leave you alone, and will not be venturing into the space for the remainder of your lifetime, say one hundred years," she offered, and that took me aback. All told, it wasn't a terrible deal, considering how much she outclassed me. Still, such a deal told me a lot of what she was doing.

"Something's going on in human space, something you don't want me to get involved in," I said simply, and Claire just smiled without answering. The bombings almost a year ago now, the ones that had started me on this path. That had to be part of it, and I'd probably already damaged their plans enough. My money wasn't what they wanted now, they wanted me gone.

"I make this offer in good faith. Should you refuse it, I can tell you right now, your ship, and those in your fleet, will be reduced to nothing but expanding vapor clouds," she told me, and I watched some of the Unfettered ships close up lines, like a predator preparing to pounce.

"And what does the leader of this world say? The one who promised me safe passage in Unfettered space? Is he a man to go back on his word?" I asked, hoping to buy time with the ploy. It didn't buy much, however, as the face of the old squirrel soon floated beside the image of Claire.

"I'm merely returning one dishonor with another. Those drives you 'sold' to us, belonged to ships we lost to the north. Either you claimed them from the Wanderers, or you captured them yourself. Whatever the case, our deal was not made in good faith," he told me, and I chuckled a little. I hadn't really trusted him to be held to his word, as it was rather easy to figure out where I'd gotten the drives, but still, he threw that back in my face rather well, and left me with very few options.

"Ah, Coth, it seems your clutch brother's death was not exaggerated," said an expected voice, Sayari, next to me. She startled me, but I tried not to let that show, as the image before me tilted, so that she had a good view of it as well, and far more importantly so Coth could see her.

"What? A Word Bearer? What are you doing on this human vessel?!" the last was shouted in incredulity, and I could almost see every ship in the enemy fleet that had been getting ready for battle, begin to hesitate.

"I Bear towards the north, where those who speak the Word are to be found, according to this human and Wing Commander Joe. I would speak with them on behalf of Hai Home and all its forces, and thus require a ship capable of reaching them. This human, who speaks not the Word, needs my voice, as I need his engines. An equitable arrangement, no?" she asked him, a chuckle from her lips, and I could see a mixture of hate, disgust, and what I had to say was almost worship in the eyes of the Hai on the other side of the screen.

"Coth, you will allow me to pass through this space. As a Bearer, I have the right to ask for this boon of you," she tells him sternly, and I can see him consider her words.

"No, no you will not. We have Sage, dead to rights, right now. If allowed, he will find another way out of Wanderer space. I demand you uphold our bargain," said Claire to the Hai, who looked to the side, obviously a monitor displaying her, before looking back at me, his face very thoroughly conflicted.

"Our human ally is correct, Bearer. I will instead allow you to dock with my vessel, and I shall Bear you to the north," suggests the old Hai, but Sayari just shakes her head, not even considering the offer.

"This human is the one who Bears my Word. This was agreed upon, and I shall not allow another to do so. Either you must allow us to pass, or you shall be barred from the Grove when it comes time," she declares, and that gets Coth to blanch, his fur taking on a silver hue as the flesh beneath goes pale.

"Bearer, I can't. To ask me to give up my allies…" his voice trails off in a defeated tone.

"Coth, arm your weapons now!" orders Claire, as she starts forward, her ship obviously moving into an attack position on my ship. I can see STAR already preparing our defenses, when suddenly the fleet behind Claire fires. Missiles, Hai Trackers, fly in a swarm, enough to cause the sun to dim as they pass between us and it. Their target, close as it is, can only shoot down a few with its defenses, as dozens of explosions bloom against the ship's shields.

"Coth! Wh-ZZAT-," Claire is cut off as the shields on her vessel fail, the Trackers now impacting her hull directly. Unlike Bernard, the explosions are slow, and so her screen goes to static, however, I can just picture her in a panic as flames burst from every direction, as her ship is reduced to a cloud of vapor. In my viewscreen, I see Coth look out, his vessel still stopped, not having fired on Claire's ship, and instead just staring at the spot where it was, before turning to face me.

"Bearer, I allow you to pass now, but never again. You have cost the Unfettered much this day, more than you can truly grasp. For that, I declare Anathema to you. This Road is Barred," he said, and then cut off. The fleet before us then descended back to the planet below, as if we were no longer worth it.

"I'm guessing your people expected something like this?" I asked as I watched the fuel gauge move upwards as we refueled from the local primary, letting the ramscoops work.

"It was anticipated, yes. I did not know one of your kind would be here. I am sorry for the loss to your people," she said, and I simply nod, rather than scoff. I knew enough about holy people to know that any death, even one of someone like Claire or Bernard, tended to be mourned.

"I'm guessing this is a one way trip for you, then? I mean, we might be able to make our way past them, with some luck, if you want," I offer, but Sayari just shakes her head.

"No, to pass this star again while breath lies within me would bar my spirit from the Grove. I knew this might be the case, and have made my arrangements. Hopefully, these Wanderers will not mind a missionary," she says with a very sad smile, before we jump out of system, leaving Hai space behind.


	24. Learning to Fly from the Birds

Landing on the Wanderer world again a week later, I found myself greeted by what I assumed were the same eight who'd met me before. Of course, that was impossible to tell, considering while I could see differences between Wanders, like color and plumage, I had not made a note to remember the details of the ones that had met me before. Luckily whoever they were, they spoke at length to Sayari, and after a long bit of that, one of them offered what looked like a disk to me.

"This holds their language, a basic course on it at any rate. Your AI should be able to use it to translate their words to your tongue," says the female Hai, and I nod, handing the thing to one of the droids beside us. It engulfs the thing in silver goo for a moment, before making some odd noises that sound like bird screeches, and then motions towards the Wanderer who'd handed me the disk.

"Hello, do you understand me?" I ask, and I can literally see the edges of the beak curl upwards in a smile.

"This one hears and knows your words, Human Sage. This one is proud to be known to you as Iktat Rek," says the Wanderer in a masculine sounding voice, before flaring out his wings, revealing his two small arms beneath them. You don't try to mimic the gesture, as you lack the wings, but instead bow your head. After that, you begin to trade basic ship information as the remainder of your fleet is given berths, refueling them using the mimetic polyalloy to allow interface with the oddly designed pumps of the Wanderers. After every ship is linked up, I, a droid, Bandit, Sayari, and Joe walked with Iktat to a small building built into the cliff, and sit in what I can only guess is some kind of office or meeting room.

"You have many questions on your tongues about our flights. Let them flow, and we shall stem the tide with knowledge," said the Wanderer as he took a perch on an odd hanging thing from the ceiling. My companions and I did likewise, save the droid that just stood.

"Alright, let's get the big one out of the way first. Why do you speak the Holy Tongue of Old Chitter? One would assume you learned it from the Unfettered, and yet, that language is not something taught outside the priesthood," asks Sayari before I can voice your own pressing questions.

"Ah, such words are known to our beaks by what remained. When the Eye gazed upon these world, it beheld the death that comes of stone and steel. We took from the remnants the words of those who passed, and then began to add life once more unto these spheres," responded Iktat, and it took me a moment to parse what he'd said, as the phrasing was odd, still, what he said made me think of the Coth's words when he spoke of this past.

"So these worlds, the ones in this area, really did once belong to the Hai?" I ask, and the avian nods.

"Indeed those called Hai once named these spheres as theirs, but that was in the long ago, an age long before the Eye opened upon this sight," he answered.

"So, the ruins had Old Chitter in them, and you studied them to learn the language. Did you learn anything else, like what drove the Hai away?" I pressed.

"Our wings taste familiar winds on the spheres. No war of gun or blade was done to harm these places. No, merely the touch of a tool, to be repaired by we who Tend to broken worlds. When our work is done, all shall be returned, as commanded by the Eye," he explained, and you took a moment to consider that. It fit with what the Unfettered said of their history, and you turn slightly to see Joe looking very dour at the statements. Reaching a hand out, I take her paw in my grip, and give a light squeeze, getting her to look up at me.

"Whatever the past, we make our own future, okay?" you tell her, trying your best to smile, and she returns it as best she can, before you both turn back to Iktat.

"What is this Eye you speak of?" I ask next, and at this, Iktat Rek seems less than enthused to answer, ruffling his plumage for a moment, then sighing.

"The Eye is the Eye. It opens upon the stars that are burdened by the scars of thought beings, their stone and steel stacked, and the lands torn asunder. When it opens, we pass through its gaze to come to those worlds that are so scarred, to heal them. Once the worlds are life filled once more, the Eye opens, and we ride its gaze to a new world in need of healing," he said, and I tap at my chin in thought. The Eye must be some kind of wormhole, but it sounds far too regular to be natural.

"Ah, so the Eye is a holy thing to you?" asks Sayari.

"The Eye is all to the Wanderers. It guides us to worlds that we might make them whole. In the healing, we ourselves are made more than we were," he says.

"Do you have people who speak of the Eye? Holy texts or the like?" she asks, and Iktat nods.

"Those Who Gaze. They are the carriers of Old Winds, giving us our history, and speaking of past worlds we have healed," he tells her, and the old squirrel woman smiles.

"Might I be taken to them? I am a holy woman of my people. Due to how we came here, I'm afraid I cannot leave this place, and would like to beg sanctuary if it is permissible," she explains, and Iktat seems to consider this for a moment, before walking over to a wall and pressing against it. The wall...slides as he does so, a bit of it spinning around to reveal some kind of communication device that he breathes into for a moment, seeming to make no noise. After a moment though, he turns back, his feathers ruffled a bit to appear even softer.

"Those Who Gaze freely welcome the Hai Sayari to their nest. When we are done here, an escort shall be found," he says, and I can almost hear the relief in the Hai woman thanking him for his people's generosity.

"So, going back to the Hai, I'm guessing they've been attacking you for twenty-two years, eight months, three weeks, and maybe a few days, correct?" I ask, and the gathered people seem taken aback by the specificity of my statement.

"That is when the winds of the Hai blew unto us. How do you know that, Human Sage?" he asks, and I motion towards the droid, whose hands shift into projectors, eventually displaying a list of ship names and timestamps in the air before him.

"We sojourned on an Unfettered world a few weeks ago, to scout around. While there, my AI companion, STAR, was able to infiltrate their system. We copied everything we could, for later perusal. During our passage through their space to bring Sayari here, we were accosted by them. During that, I learned they had dealings with a human woman of my acquaintance," as I spoke, the list focused in on the Shield Beetle Claire had been on.

"Cross referencing this vessel's arrivals and departures with the manifest lists puts this ship as the one trading the jump drives with the Unfettered, starting at that date," I told him, and waved a hand towards a ship receipt that spoke of a transaction. No details on payment for the goods, or the goods themselves. Just weight. Specifically the exact weight of ten jump drives.

"Hmm, distressing. The winds have never before spoken of your kind, Human Sage. Would this Human be willing to take offerings for ceasing their trade with the Unfettered?" asked Iktat, and I actually let out a barking laugh, before shaking my head.

"If she were alive, never. Claire and her associates get an idea in their head, and they never let it go. That won't be a problem, however," I tell him, and the avian face seems confused for a moment, then takes on a defeated expression.

"You slayed her and those who flew with her?" he asked, and I quickly shook my head.

"I've slain one, but there are still three others. Claire's death came at the hands of her allies. The Unfettered did not take kindly to her trying to attack their holy woman," as I spoke, I gestured to Sayari, who looked uncomfortable at the reminder that thanks to her, someone had passed onto the next life.

"Ah, so her death was merely a tragedy?" asked Iktat, but again I shook my head.

"I would not say that. I'm seeing now you aren't ones for violence, but I won't sugar coat it. I'm an independent captain, sometimes I do very un-nice things and take pleasure in this that might not be considered right. My family and Claire's group have had our differences, and seeing her reduced to her constituent particles makes my steps a whole lot lighter," I explain, and the wanderer and hai holy woman both seem to take a moment to reflect on me with sorrow. The quarg, non-religious hai, and android seem to be completely at ease, however.

"This news, while not of the warmest winds, sings with promise of the future. You say this Human Claire, was the one who gave the Unfettered their drives. Would one of her flight take up this task?" he asked me, and I have to think about that for a moment. Think about what I knew, or thought I'd known about the old man, before finally sighing.

"No, I don't think so. The old men like her always had their own business dealings, and I don't doubt they kept their own kingdoms quite independent of each other. Likely the eight seven drives they have now, are the only ones the Unfettered have left," I say, and the Wanderer seems to sigh himself, this time with relief.

"Much warmth then. I will pass this wind along," he said, turning back to the odd device on the wall. This time his breathing into it takes a while, and I fidget a bit in my seat, finding that the odd design is actually sending my butt to sleep, right up until the avian turns back to me.

"The Flight Leader of our defenses would like to digest your food for you," said Iktat as he finally takes his seat again.

"I assume that is a good thing," you say, and a very human smile tugs at the edges of the beak.

"It is indeed. You have solved a problem many years in the making, and for that, we thank you. While our warships will still all be needed for the defense of our worlds, we now know our enemies number, and may place them in such a way to prevent further intrusion. In gratitude, our yards are to be opened to your fleet," as he spoke, he rummaged around in his desk, and gently passed me a disk.

"This holds data regarding our technology. You may acquire anything on it, save the warships themselves," he tells me, and I pass the disk onto STAR's android.

"I assume this will have to be a tit-for-tat trade. You won't just be giving me these units, correct?" I ask, and Iktat shrugs his wings.

"It is true, we cannot part with equipment lightly. The winds of war have blown too hard on some of our charges with the Unfettered making their displeasure known. Still, I assume your people have some form of currency?" he asks, and I nod.

"Republic Credits. What use would those be to you, however?" I respond.

"Such has been our way, moving where the Eye gazes, that many patterns have emerged. You have come here, without war winds on your wings. What will follow after will be traders and diplomats. Having a currency they already use will make the skies of trade far simpler when such visits us," he explains, and you nod. A few more platitudes are traded, with our group parting as we leave the office. My friends and I to the yards, STAR saying he sees promise in some of the outfits, if not the ships, while Sayari bids us farewell, taking off towards a monastery.

It takes almost an hour of haggling over the price of a credit compared to the Wanderers 'Stones', a jewel like currency they use, before we purchase our goods. Reactors are loaded on board, stronger than the Hai's. Better yet, Sunbeams, powerful ray type weapons, stronger than anything in human space. Bigger too, given I can only equip two of the regulars and two dual turrets aboard each Beetle. And finally, the Wanderer Ramscoops, so much more efficient than the things I had from human space.

"Alright, everyone ready?" I ask, and get confirmations across the board. My fleet, now ready for war, launches moments later. On my galactic map, a course is set, one out the 'backdoor' of Wanderer space, and into some pirate systems in human space. I was going to be a big surprise for some of those guys, and better yet, a nice shake down for my fleet, before we got onto the bigger issues. Claire had confirmed, human space was about to be shaken up bad, if it hadn't already started, and I knew I needed to be there at the center of it if I could.


	25. A Fleet

"Alright, we're ready," I said, looking over my fleet status lights. Behind me, trailing in a long silver cloud was the fleet. And truly, it was a fleet, two and a half years had passed since the attacks that had given me notice of the Korath, almost three since finding the Hai, and now I had command of what was probably the largest force in the galaxy under a single command. Each ship was a capital, a Shield Beetle to be precise, with a single pilot and androids running off an iteration of STAR doing everything but the driving.

"All fleet assets stand ready, Admiral," said STAR's voice as we launched. Behind us was the Deep world of Valhalla. The skies ahead parted in our wake as we took to the Endless Sky once again. Every ship, more than three hundred now, was loaded with a mixture of tech from all over the galaxy. Jump drives for travel, atomic engines, including reverse thrusters, for real space movement, System Cores for shields, control, and hull repairs, while heat shunts made us nearly heatless.

"Weapons check," I ordered, and got a staccato of clicks over the comms as each vessel blasted out with the Sunbeams, six on each ship, a stunning stream of yellow lights passing into the heavens. With Wanderer reactors and ramscoops helping to power and fuel, my fleet was ready for almost anything the galaxy could throw at us. Heck, already five pirate worlds had fallen to us, their leaders sending tribute to me. Only a few hundred a day, really, but still, it kept them in line for the moment.

"All checks complete, we are combat ready, Admiral. Where should we head?" asked my AI companion, and I had to consider that for a moment, bringing up a holographic display of the galaxy in the air before me.

A year ago, when I'd left Wanderer space, I'd wanted to go straight to the source, to demand answers, but I found nothing on New Boston. Not a single shred of the Old Men were left anywhere in the system, and they didn't try to flee either, as my then fleet of one hundred and seven escorts had stayed in orbit to ensure that. With that avenue dried up, we'd begun making our way around the galaxy, searching for any sign of our foes. That had led to a few jobs, including traveling with They Might Be Riots, a band, and helping the world Rand with its terraforming troubles.

Oddly, no matter where I went, the story was the same. The Old Men, a group who had command of fleets, and had somehow had regular access to jump drives, were just gone. Worse, the situation in human space was hanging by a thread. War was threatened by both the Republic and the 'Free Worlds' yet neither side was willing to make the first move. It didn't take a genius, luckily for me, to figure out there was something up with that. Three years since the Free Worlds withdrew to an almost simultaneous terrorist attack on two of the most valuable assets in the Republic, and yet, nothing.

That last bit was disturbing. Images were on the news almost daily of the fleets of both sides just kind of staring at each other across space. Nothing beyond that though. Everyone seemed to be aware that something, anything, should have happened by now, and the silence was nearly deafening. Worst of all, the Syndicate, the massive corporation that produced many of the goods, seemed to be selling to both sides, at inflated rates, which kept all the goods times flowing for them.

Staring at that map, I knew somewhere there was an answer. The Old Men couldn't hide forever, and now I had a force to be reckoned with. Using my finger, I plotted a course through some of the less populated systems, where they wouldn't be able to house half the fleet I had. I figured it was the best way to shake something loose, and better yet, would provide some shake downs for my new captains and the command structure I had installed, with me at the top, Bandit and Joe below, and various Wing Commanders in charge otherwise. Who knew? Maybe my answer would be waiting in one of these ports?


	26. Rage, Smouldering

I wasn't lucky enough for our first destination to have the answer. Nor the second. By the fifth, my fleet captains, some of which hadn't gotten off their ships in a week, due to how many there were, were starting to grumble a little. As such, I took a detour towards the Paradise worlds near Earth. Figured I'd give them some time to stretch their legs, and maybe let those who'd found the flight a bit more than what they'd anticipated off. While my two alien cohorts, an android, and myself were sitting in a cafe near the port, however, we were approached by a man.

He didn't give his name, just identifying himself as an archaeologist, one whose special interest lay in the Deep. He offered me a good sum if I'd do some vandalism for him. Not how he described it, obviously, but still, the principle was the same. He believed that a certain church in the Deep, one of the oldest holy sites, actually predated human expansion into the region. That seemed absurd of course, but then, Elizabeth Sage, the first of my line, had supposedly left behind colonies that her single person exploration vessel simply wouldn't have allowed.

I agreed to do his dirty work, transporting him and a few of his associates to an out of the way world called Vinci. He was, of course, quite stunned by the size of my fleet, and the odd things about it. His associates, some of which included a xeno-sociologist, actually nearly demanded a tour. I wasn't exactly feeling charitable at the time, but STAR convinced me to allow it, one of his droid bodies taking them around to show the sights to, keeping them out of the more sensitive areas, and finally taking them to their cabins.

"You could stand to be a bit nicer. What has come over you lately?" he asked me privately as we waited for some of the ships to refuel at a star some time later. Facing his silver skinned form, I tried to look placid, but I couldn't out stare a robot, and finally just sighed, rubbing at my eyes and turning away.

"Honestly? I've been thinking alot about our current situation. When we started out here, it was just the two of us, expanding our horizons in a small ship, just two beings out for adventure. Now though, we're involved in stuff way bigger than us, and I don't like it," I admitted at last.

"You feel we should abandon this quest for the Old Men and go back to just exploring?" he asked, and after thinking about it for a moment, really considering it, I shook my head.

"No, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't feel right doing that either. We saved the Wanderers, doing what we did. If we hadn't intervened, the Unfettered probably would have continued to raid them, and we both saw those manifests. It may have taken Claire a decade to get them ten more after that first delivery, but she was speeding up. In a hundred years, like she offered, the Unfettered would have been able to equip a huge fleet with those drives. Probably conquer both the other Hai and the Wanderers at a stroke," I admitted, imagining that scene in my head, and not liking it at all as I saw ghosts of the avians and squirrels vaporized by Unfettered strikes.

"So then, you feel responsible for the galaxy at large? You think it is your responsibility to keep everyone safe, because you have the power to do so?" he presses farther, and I'm about to reject it out of hand, then I consider the statement for a moment. It seems to be, from the outside, what I'm thinking, but inside...no, it's not that at all.

"No, I think I want revenge. That's what's bothering me. I know we're doing good things, but we're doing it because I'm a terrible person inside," I said, and then waved my hand, pressing a few holo buttons. What displayed in the air before me was my most watched video clips, namely Bernard and Claire dying. Their faces, twisted in pain, the first blasting through Bernard's hull, while Claire just kind of stares into space. It still brings a smile to my lips, one that only gets a bit broader as I look at the three blank slots beside them, waiting for their own videos.

"Yes, I want to make them suffer, in the same way they made my family suffer for all those years. You don't watch your mother work dead end jobs, and literally have her savings stolen twice, without wanting to get back at the ones who did it," I said, dismissing the screens with a wave of my hand. STAR, for his part, was silent as I sat back down in my seat, staring out at the star beyond, watching thin trails of glowing light be scooped up by my fleet.

"I see," he said at last, and then he waved his silvery hand. Instantly, more screens popped up, scenes from our adventures. They showed our fleet engaging pirates, helping to defend merchants and civilian vessels against aggressors, before we warped away without ever asking for anything. It also showed us loading supplies, and then an image of myself, literally giving the stuff away at Martini back after the bombings.

"You've done much good over the years, and while I won't say you've always had the best of intentions, you are a good person at heart, no matter what you might think of yourself," was all he said, finally displaying an image of the Hendersons smiling at me, before he stood silent, his mind focused elsewhere. Left alone in the darkness of my bridge, I wondered at my own heart, until a beeping told me it was time to go, and my fleet set off once more for our destination.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is based off a free game, available on steam now. It's a two dimensional SciFi action game, with trading and ship customization. It's easy to mod, and encourages users to make the game their own. I highly recommend it if you enjoyed games like Escape Velocity, Drox Operative, or others in that vein. Find the game here.
> 
> http://store.steampowered.com/app/404410


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